Hopes and Sighs

Pentecost – May 19, 2024

Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 10425-35, 37
Romans 8:22-27
John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

When we read Paul’s letters we only have his response to the issues that the Christians he was writing to were having. If we had their letters to Paul we would be better able to know what issues Paul was addressing. Without the communities’ letters we are left surmising what those issues were. In our brief text from Romans today it seems that Paul is addressing the age-old question of why do God’s people suffer. The Christians in Rome were no different. After becoming Christians their lives had not changed for them. Why was God not answering their prayers? Life certainly was difficult for those early Christians. Many of the early Christians were poor, some were slaves. For life to have changed for them would have required a change in the culture and government of their time. Life in Roman times was difficult for most everyone. Everything was done by manual labor. There was no social security for retirement. When disaster struck there was no emergency management agency. On top of that there seems to have been dissension in the church. There had been a fire in Rome and the emperor had blamed the Jews for it and forced them to move out of Rome. That included the Jews who were Christian. When they returned to Rome and to their church they found it different. The gentile Christians who were able to stay in Rome had become the leaders of the church and, as with every change in leadership, did things differently than their Jewish brothers and sisters had. Paul, it seems, was addressing both of these struggles.

Paul approaches this issue differently than some would expect. Instead of telling them that soon things will get better or chiding them for not working harder or more diligently, he tells them that the Holy Spirit suffers with them and will teach them to pray. This is one of Paul’s themes – through suffering their faith will grow. This is a message we need to hear ourselves. We live in a world that is telling us that we should never suffer. We hear this message from street pharmacists to television hawkers and almost everywhere else. While our suffering cannot compare with that of the early Christians, we still do suffer. Unlike them, with proper care, we can have much of our suffering relieved. We also have the advantage over those early Christians in that our faith is allowed by the government. That was not always true for those early Christians and even now for some Christians around the world. And yet, we still suffer.

What then is Paul’s solution? We are called to prayer. It is in prayer that we find comfort and hope. That is because the Spirit knows our suffering and intercedes for us according to the will of God. For God does not desire our suffering but has given us the faith to endure. But even more, God has given us this community – the Body of Christ – so that we do not suffer alone. But we are also called to show the world what the Spirit does for us. Through our prayer we become strengthened for the task that God has called us to. That task is to share God’s love with the world even in our suffering. But first, begin with prayer. Allow the Holy Spirit to shape your life in the image of Jesus.