Loving God, you pour out your love for us even when we refuse to acknowledge you.  Help us to see what amazing grace you have given us through Jesus Christ, and fill our hearts with your love; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    Those of you who are parents or guardians or foster parents: Would you say that you make sacrifices for your children?...  And are there ever times when it seems as though your children are totally ungrateful for what you have given them?... So how do you respond when that happens?...  It’s not an easy thing, right?  When you give yourself in love to your children, one would think it is usually with the hope that love will be reciprocated in some way.

    So now imagine that you are God.  You have given birth to a whole world full of people who are not necessarily going to love you or even to acknowledge your existence.  You have given birth to these people, and you know that they are going to do everything in their power to separate themselves from you.  They will be weak and ungodly and sinners.  They will even be your enemies.  And in spite of all this, you pour yourself out in love for them.

    This is the kind of God that we encounter in today’s reading from Romans.  In self-giving love, God sent his Son Jesus to live and suffer and die and be raised from the dead.  God did this, knowing what we would be like, and yet wanting to provide a way in which we could be reconciled with God.  This peace with God happens, not because we somehow smarten up and live the way we should, but because Jesus has opened the way for us.

    However, please don’t misunderstand this.  God doesn’t save us so that we can do whatever we want and then come and ask for forgiveness every so often.  The order of events goes something like this: First, God pours out God’s heart and soul in self-giving love through Jesus.  So, God acts through Jesus to save us.  The next thing that happens is that the Holy Spirit works in our hearts in order to bring us to faith.  And so, we recognize what God has done for us through Jesus and put our faith in him, and thus receive God’s forgiveness and salvation.  Then, because of our faith in Jesus Christ, we live by the power of the Spirit.  In other words, our faith shows up in our love for God and for the people around us.

    This same order of events is very much reflected in the gift of baptism that has been shared today.  Because the ones who were baptized today are infants, it makes it all the more clear that God is the one who is acting.  God has acted to save them, and the Holy Spirit has already started to produce the gift of faith in their hearts.  However, it can’t stop there, for faith that never grows and that never learns how God intends for us to live becomes dead rather than living.  That’s why parents and sponsors promise to do all that they can in order to pass on the faith to these children.

    This is not something that is intended to be a burden, but a privilege.  After all, once you have a sense of how amazing it is that God’s love has been poured out for us through Jesus, it is an absolute privilege to be able to pass that good news on to others.  It is also, as Paul suggests, something to boast about.

    In fact, did you notice how many times today’s reading mentions boasting?... What kinds of things would people normally boast about?...  It’s usually all about me, right? - Or maybe sometimes it’s all about my kids, or maybe all about my grandchildren.  However, when Paul writes about boasting, it’s all about God.  It’s kind of like, “I have confidence before God because of what Jesus has done.”  “I know that I will share in the glory of God – not because of all of the great things that I have done, but because I have faith in Jesus Christ.”  That is having peace with God!

    However, did you notice that Paul also suggests boasting “in our sufferings” (Rom. 5:3)?  So was Paul a masochist, or is there a good reason for him to suggest this?  From Paul’s perspective, whenever he suffered, he felt as though he was sharing in some way in what Jesus had already suffered on his behalf.  And so, he didn’t see suffering as a sign that God had abandoned him or as evidence that God doesn’t care, or even as evidence that there is no God.  Instead, he fully expected that those who followed Jesus would suffer.  This is exactly what Jesus had predicted, and in Paul’s experience, the world continued to be hostile to the good news of Christ’s resurrection.

    And so, to Paul, suffering was simply part of belonging to Christ, and the reason to boast in it was not to say, “Look at what I can take.”  Instead, Paul experienced the peace and love and joy of the Holy Spirit in his heart, even when he was suffering, and to him that was a sure sign of the truth about Jesus and the presence of the risen Christ.

    I can’t help but think of Chung Hyun Kyung, a young South Korean woman who experienced the presence of Jesus while she was being tortured.  She was among some students who had been kidnaped and imprisoned.  Prior to this time, she did not believe in Jesus, but in the midst of being tortured she sensed the presence of Jesus there with her.  She knew that he shared in her suffering, and after that experience she became a Christian.

    It’s not as though suffering is required, or anything like that, in order to be a Christian.  Rather, we are simply being reminded that if and when we do suffer, the love of God is still there, and Jesus experiences it with us.  We also should not expect that we are somehow immune to trials in this life because we belong to Christ.

    And so, do you want peace with God?  Do you want rest for your souls?  Jesus invites you to come to him, and to learn from him, and to allow the love of God to transform your hearts and minds.  For God has acted through Jesus to save us – loving us, even when we don’t love him.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Easter 6 (NL 1)                                Romans 5:1-11
May 10, 2015
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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