Eager Expectation

A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on July 20, 20087, based on
Romans 8: 18-25:

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."


The Legend of Leelawala
This past week, when we were at Niagra Falls, I saw a movie about the history of the area. It seems that a Native American tribe lived close by and the chief thought it would be a good idea to give his daughter, Leelawala, in marriage to the oldest man of the tribe. Leelawala submitted to the marriage, but was very distressed by it and after the ceremony she ran away from the camp. The legend tells that she heard the spirit of the Thundering Waters calling to her and she ran towards it. When she came to the river, she got in a canoe and paddled to the falls. Over she went and as she fell into the chaos below, her spirit became one with the Spirit of the Falls, and now she lives forever in eternal unity with that Spirit.

Now that may sound like a primitive legend, but we as Christians can sometimes adopt a similar way of thinking about our lives and our future prospects. Life can be very distressing and it sometimes seems as if we are being swept along, like Leelalwala in her canoe, towards the great cataclysm up ahead. Things get rockier and rockier in our lives, events speed up and we are hurled along, helpless, until at last we plunge over the falls and are dashed to bits on the rocks below. Dying, we ascend to heaven as disembodied spirits – like Leelawala – and live forever in paradise with God.

Our Destiny
Now there’s only one problem with that story – it’s not our Destiny. Yes, we will go to Heaven when we die – or as Jesus said to the dying thief, “today you will be with me in Paradise”. But living forever in a blissful, disembodied existence is not the final state for the believer. Heaven as we normally conceive of it is a sort of way station where we wait for the final summation of all things, the recreation of the physical universe. Our destiny is to be like Jesus in every way- and that includes physically. This is what Paul is talking about when he says we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved.

We were saved in hope that our bodies would be redeemed - not that we would that we would sit on misty clouds playing harps for all eternity!

Think of the body Jesus had after his resurrection. It was recognizable as a physical body. Mary thought the risen Christ was a gardener. And the two disciples on the road to Emmaus did not recognize Jesus until he was revealed in the breaking of the bread. He was able to touch this bread and eat. He cooked breakfast for Peter and the disciples on the beach. Thomas touched the wounds of Christ’s physical body.

But this body was special. It could pass through walls, and disappear and ascend into the clouds. It was a Resurrection body – a Body that had passed through death and been transformed by the power of God, the same kind of body we will have in our own resurrection.

The apostle John describes the renewal of all things in his Revelation: “Behold I saw a new Heaven and a new earth coming down out of heaven. (Rev. 21:1) …for behold, God is making all things new (v. 5).

The physical universe was subjected to decay, suffering and death through the sin of the one man Adam. But through the righteous sacrifice of the man Jesus, God will make all things new – both human beings and physical matter will get a second chance – the opportunity to be cleansed of sin and to live free of death and suffering. This is the promise held out to all of us in Christ and even extended to the physical creation.


So What?!
So - sounds great, can’t wait. What does that mean to me right now?! …. It means, friends, that we should be people of Eager Expectation, in a word - Hope. The Greek word used to convey ‘Eager expectation’ has the sense of one who scans the horizon with his head thrust forward in order to spot the first signs of the dawn. This person is not discouraged by the darkness around, but focuses on the return of the light. His is not a ‘hope-so’ faith, but a Hope based on the sure knowledge that dawn follows night.

Personally, Expectant Hope means that even though we face challenges, sickness, strife and trouble, that this present reality is not the whole picture, but that a Restoration is on the way. Help is coming; in fact it’s already here - because

We have a Down Payment or ‘earnest money’ for our Hope. That deposit is the Holy Spirit, who resides within Christians, enlightening us, giving assurance that the Great Light will return and that we will have a part in it. It’s like the line from the hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness”, we have “help for today and bright hope for tomorrow…Great is Thy Faithfulness, Lord unto me. Our Hope does not disappoint because of the Holy Spirit poured out within our hearts ( Romans 5:5).

Our eager expectation should be like the woman who expects an important guest, and cleans up the house in order to have a beautiful place to offer the guest - remembering, of course, that the guest is interested in us first. There is a sense of urgency: The guest is coming, we must be busy preparing for Him.

Extending this metaphor to the world around us, we believe that the watchword for all our outreach and ministry activity is “Redemption”.

Mission Tri State 4 Corners Blessing
Recently, a group of us from All Saints participated in a Mission Tri-State event where we blessed the four geographic corners of the City of Huntington. We had prayers of confession, prayers of blessing the city, prophecies and Communion. At the end of our worship, we poured the consecrated elements out on the ground, asking God to bless the ground itself. You’ll remember that we also did this at Hope House during our first memorial service, pouring out the elements of the very spot where each teen had fallen.


This action was based on the notion that the creation itself groans and eagerly anticipates its own redemption. It’s a little like saying, “Hang on, be patient, your time is coming – and in the meantime be blessed as we pray the Lord of the Harvest to save souls and to bring redemption to you, Ground”. We were proclaiming our belief that the blessings of salvation extend even to the physical universe.

Watchword: Redemption
In our work here on Earth, an important distinction needs to be made. There’s a difference between working for the Redemption of the world in view of the Resurrection, and trying to make this world Heaven.

When you don’t believe in resurrection and recreation, when you don’t believe that the sufferings of this world are not to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed, then this world is all there is. You take a look around you and you see that, just as Jesus said, there is good and bad in the world; the wheat and the tares grow up together. There is suffering in the world. People are selfish. They pursue their own good to the exclusion of others’ goods. They don’t love their neighbors as themselves. What do we think about this? What do we do about it?

The great temptation of our age has been to make the State the instrument of Salvation – to take away freedom from individuals and put it into the hands of powerful elites under the pretext of gaining safety and security or the salvation of the world order. These elites then profit personally and oppress everybody else. In order to coax people to give up their freedom, they have to be scared to death by various kinds of crises. Since we’re talking about the physical world today, we can mention the Environment as an issue that various false prophets use to terrify the masses into giving up control of their lives.

Folks, the world will not be destroyed by SUV emissions and cow Flatulence! God has a renewal plan for the universe and it doesn’t include humans leaving a barren earth and depending upon some stupid robot to clean up the mess we left behind. We are stewards of a magnificent, but fallen world that needs redemption, not mere recycling! …

Then finally, if we eagerly expect Resurrection, we should be eager to share this hope with others around us who do not have hope. This is the greatest news of all time; how can we keep it to ourselves?!

God has given us a Great Commission – to go into all the world and make disciples – to rescue those who are perishing, and to redeem them from sin and death; to be poured out as an offering and given as bread ‘for the life of the world”, just like Jesus says in John 6:51: I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

What we have is Life, the Life of the world. In all of our outreach work, we are offering Life to the world. We offer Life through introducing people to Jesus as Savior and Lord. We offer Life through ministering to people’s grief and sorrow. We offer Life when we reach out to alleviate poverty and hunger. We offer Life through teaching people how to live stable, productive and healed lives. And we do it all as collaborators with our wonderful God, knowing that our labor is not in vain, that all we do for the Kingdom of God will bear fruit in its time, and that one day, all we see around us will cease to groan and rejoice instead.

We are not like Leelawala. We don’t have to throw ourselves over the falls in order to escape our despair. The King is coming, bringing glorious redemption with Him. Let us eagerly expect His coming and live In Expectant Hope! Amen.