Romans 8:12-25

One of my favorite contemporary hymns is called “Is He Worthy?” written and sung originally by singer/songwriter Andrew Peterson. It is written as a call and response and opens this way: “Do you feel the world is broken? We do. Do you feel the shadows deepen? We do… Is all creation groaning? It is…” If there is anything that has been apparent these last few weeks and months, it is that the world is broken. Life and creation are not as they were meant to be. The world-and all of those in it, it seems-are slaves to brokenness, sin and death.

Humanity is broken and divided. We have divided ourselves by country, political party, race, gender, denomination, class and then we proclaim “We are the best!” We work for the good of ourselves and “our people” at the expense of the other. We have chosen self instead of God and others.

Our choices have consequences.

We hear often that we should be able to do what we want as long as it doesn’t effect anyone else. It sounds good in theory. The truth behind the lie is this: there is no such thing as a morally significant choice that doesn’t effect someone else. My decisions effect you. Your decisions effect me. By the very nature of the way things are, we live in community so our decisions effect others. Like the progression from Cain to Lamech, sin grows exponentially. What started out as one decision leads to another and another and soon we’re drowning in sin and brokenness and death.

Not only have our decisions effected ourselves and other humans, but Paul tells us all creation itself has been disjointed-indeed enslaved to death and decay-because of the sinful choices of humanity. This makes perfect sense in light of the Biblical Story, doesn’t it? Humans were created with the commission to be God’s ambassadors throughout all creation. They were to rule in the way that God would rule. We rejected that vocation. We chose ourselves instead. It only makes sense that when those who are called to love and take care of creation reject that vocation, creation will suffer as a result.

Do we feel the world is broken? Yes. Yes we do.

And yet…

Thanks be to God, Andrew Peterson’s song doesn’t end there. Neither does the Biblical story. The song continues:

“Is a new creation coming? It is.

Is the glory of the Lord to be the light within our midst? It is. Is it good that we remind ourselves of this? It is.”

All throughout Scripture, we are met with the promise that in the end, God will dwell with his people. It’s there in the creation of the tabernacle and Temple. It’s there in the promises of the prophets. God will dwell with his people. God’s glory will return to the Temple, never to leave again. Indeed, all of creation will one day be the Temple of Almighty God.

Paul says one day creation’s groans to be set free from its bondage to decay will be answered. There is coming a day when all that is wrong with the world will be made right again.

Brokenness and death and decay do not have the last word. Restoration and redemption and life have the last word. Love has the last word.

The way Paul speaks of this is intriguing, to say the least. We might expect Paul to say that one day God will come down and fix everything. God will wave God’s magic wand and all will be made right.

That’s not what Paul says. Paul says “creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.” That’s interesting, isn’t it? Creation is waiting for the children of God to actually live like children of God. Creation waits for the children of God to take up the vocation they were given in the first place.

Paul reminds us that though we used to be enslaved to sin, though we used to be the hands and feet of division and destruction and death, that is no longer so. We have a new obligation, a new master: the Spirit of God. As disciples of Jesus we have been set free from the chains we put on ourselves while we were yet sinners. Now we live life through the Spirit.

Now we take up the vocation we once rejected for sin. Creation itself is waiting for us to live into our vocation, that creation itself might take part in the freedom we already experience. As we share in Christ’s freedom, we are the hands and feet of that freedom throughout all creation.

A point of clarification: we do not bring the Kingdom on our own. It is not in our own efforts that creation is set free from bondage to decay. Neither is it true that we sit back and let God do it all. Like Moses setting the Hebrews free from slavery in Egypt, we do not do it alone, but we have a role to play, a vocation to fulfill.

So we live between what is and what is coming. Indeed, we feel the brokenness of the world, but we also know a new creation is coming. We have a calling, a vocation in the midst of the coming new creation. We are the place where God’s Spirit dwells. We are the hands and feet of that new creation in the midst of the brokenness, that God’s kingdom might come on earth as it already is in heaven. Will we live into our vocation?