Loving God, your presence with us began with Jesus of Nazareth and has continued through the promised Holy Spirit.  Help us always to know that you are near and to experience the power of your unending love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    If I were to name one theme that seems to pulsate throughout the readings that we have heard today, it is this: God is with us.  Of course, there is the obvious promise in the gospel where Jesus says, “I am with you always” (Mt. 28:20).  At the same time we hear from Acts how God is now with those who believe in Jesus in a new way.  Since Jesus was no longer with them in bodily form, the disciples had been waiting and praying for the promised Holy Spirit.  Now, since the Holy Spirit has been poured out on God’s people, this is how God continues to be with us.

    God is with us, making all things work together for good (Rom. 8:28).  God is with us, even praying for us “with sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26).  God is with us in love – a love that is so deep and so wide that absolutely nothing in all creation can separate us from it (Rom. 8:39).

    At the same time, the passage that we heard today from Romans mentions a number of things that might cause us to question whether God is really with us at all.  Paul writes about groaning and suffering.  He mentions hardship and distress and persecution.  He writes about being stripped naked, and being in peril, and even being in the midst of a famine.  He writes about people with swords, who don’t mind beheading a few Christians, or using them to show others who is boss.

    Surely we could add a few things out of our own experience that might make it seem like God is not with us at all.  The death of a loved one can feel as though God has abandoned us.  Being diagnosed with a serious illness or a terminal disease can make us question God’s presence and God’s love.  Losing your job, natural disasters, being the victim of a crime – these things and so much more can make it seem as though God really doesn’t care.

    Yet, I have seen people who have gone through terrible tragedies in their lives and who will tell you without a doubt that God was there the entire time, carrying them through.  I have seen other people who, in facing similar tragedies, get mad at God and abandon their faith.  So what makes the difference?  What is it that helps us to know and to believe that all things do work together for good for those who love God?

    Perhaps at least part of the answer lies in the kind of God that people have come to believe in.  Some people believe in a God who rewards them for good behaviour.  They believe that if they go to church and follow all the right rules, then God will make them prosper and will bless their every move and will shield them from all hardship or distress.  While this might sound nice and logical and fair, it certainly didn’t work this way for Jesus.

    He lived the only perfect, sinless life that ever was – presumably a deeply God-pleasing life – and was rewarded with suffering and nakedness and crucifixion and an incredibly painful death.  Certainly things turned around in a big way when he was raised from the dead, but before that, he experienced as much suffering as anyone.

    The thing is that, through Jesus, we encounter a God who is not afraid to enter into every aspect of human life - except sin.  In Jesus, we meet the God who, rather than shielding certain people from pain and suffering, enters into it and shares it.  Even though we know that the future holds new heavens and a new earth, the earth that we live on now continues to reflect the sinful human beings that live there.  And so, in this still imperfect world, there are things like bondage and suffering and hardship.

    As people of God, we are not promised that we will avoid all of these things.  However, we are promised that God is with us in the midst of them, and that God can bring good out of even the most difficult circumstances.  This week as I tried to think of stories that would illustrate this truth, there was only one that kept coming to mind - which happens to be a story out of my own experience.  Some of you lived through it with me, and some of you probably have no idea.

    The worst day of my life was 10 years ago when my husband was refused entry into Canada and turned back at the border.  Our marriage celebration here was canceled, the future was thrown into massive uncertainty, and he headed down to Missouri to stay with his sister and her family for a week or two.  However, in spite of how devastating it was at the time, it turns out that it was the best thing that could have happened.

    Several years later he was arrested and charged with a crime of a sexual nature.  He has been in prison in Missouri since 2008 and is scheduled to be released this June.  As it turns out, I had two basic choices: I could be married to Austin, or I could continue to serve as a pastor.  There was no way I could do both.  And so, I am no longer married.

    This is not a story that I am particularly proud of, but it happened.  Once the dust settled and I was finally able to see things clearly, it became obvious to me that God’s purpose and God’s call to me was to continue to serve as a pastor.  In the end, God took the worst day of my life and transformed it into the greatest blessing.  “All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

    I do need to add, though, that this is not to say that God wanted any of this to happen.  God does not send us trials and tribulations just so that he can bring good out of them.  However, when things do happen in our lives that send us reeling, God is with us in the midst of it and is certainly able to bring good out of it.

    The other thing is that we only discover how God can bring good out of the worst situations through our own experience.  When Paul writes these things in Romans, he writes from experience.  He also writes while looking back on things that have already happened.  When you’re in the middle of a crisis, it might be a different story.  But hopefully later you will be able to see how God made things work together for good.

    We continue to live in a world full of sinful human beings, where things happen every day that are not part of God’s purpose or plan.  However, the good news is that God is also at work in the world, living within us and among us and through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  God has the power, not only to be with us in this way, but to transform hearts and lives – bringing new life out of death, joy out of sorrow, and love where there was fear.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Pentecost Sunday (NL 1)                            Romans 8:18-39
May 24, 2015                                Acts 2:1-4
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church                        Matthew 28:16-20
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

© 2015 Lynne Hutchison  All Rights Reserved