Advent hope

[AI translation] In this next passage of Romans, the apostle speaks of a very strange and bold Advent hope. The sum of this hope is what he says: "I consider that the things which we are now suffering are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us." I know that this thought can be abused, and has been abused very often in the past by Christendom. For it voluntarily gives rise - superficially explained - to the pessimistic view of life, which has been accused more than once against the followers of Christ, that all life on earth is a valley of woe, but that we shall be compensated for all our sufferings here by the glory and joy of the hereafter. Well, that in itself, even if there is truth in it - for that is what the apostle is really saying - is a cheap consolation. It does not say much to the man of today that for all the anguish and pain he has to endure on this earth, he will receive ample recompense in heaven. But if we dig deeper into what Paul is saying, we find that this is not exactly the kind of pessimism we are talking about. Nor, of course, is it optimism - for Paul, and with him the believer in Christ, is neither a pessimist nor an optimist, but a hopeful who sees life on earth in the certainty of the fulfilment of the final, great Advent hope. And this hope is not a pillow of rest for him, but an instinct - a hope that encourages him to the fullest activity.In this earthly life there are undoubtedly facts which cannot be overlooked. One such fact is that there is a great deal of trouble, suffering and physical and spiritual misery that weighs heavily on man's life. The apostle uses words like 'we are suffering', 'the world is longing for', 'we are being subjected to vanity', as if to say that many senseless things are happening. And "the bondage of corruption", and "the whole world groans and groans"... And is it not so? What terrible suffering there must be in those parts of the world where murderous bombs are still falling from the sky and miserable people are fleeing in terror underground! Or where every day little children with bloated bellies and skinny old men collapse by the hundreds from hunger in the streets and villages... Or what a mother sometimes suffers because of her child's incurable illness, or perhaps because of her son's callous, cold heart! How much a woman weeps, how much a woman grieves for her husband, or vice versa, a man for his wife! How many times, behind a curtained window in an apartment, there is so much awkward tension, physical or mental pain! If it were possible to collect on a spiritual tape recorder all the secret or open complaints, wails and cries that fill the earth for just one hour, we would be horrified at how much trouble, suffering and misery there is in this world! Perhaps it is precisely this that is sometimes conveyed in a piece of sombre, moving baroque music! These are facts. It does not help us if we do not want to notice, hear and see them.
Paul not only saw it, but one can almost feel in his words that all this suffering of many kinds was almost rippling through his soul... He even goes further in seeing and perceiving the suffering in the world. He says: "we know that the whole created world is groaning and groaning together until now". And when he speaks of the "created world", he is not only referring to the human world, but also to the natural world, the world of plants and animals. You can almost hear the mother egret sobbing as she watches helplessly, in horror, as the cat devours her little chick in the bush... Or perhaps you can almost feel the pain of the noble flower, which is being crushed by the river lizard crawling over it. He can almost hear the groaning of the trees bending in the fury of the storm, the deadly crack of the crushing of the waist! It was then that I, too, sensed something of the painful groaning and suffering sighs of the created world, when I saw in the city turned battlefield, great trees torn to pieces by bombs, dead horses leaning against fences, dogs fleeing from certain death, terrified cats... Yes: if only we had the senses: we could hear in the natural world all the painful groans and moans that we hear in the human world... These are also facts!
And the wonderful thing is that, although Paul has such a realistic view of the whole created world - human world and natural world - he does not say it all in a Schopenhauerian litany of world-weariness, nor with the dark irony or lamentation of pessimistic writers and philosophers, but - almost unbelievably - it only heightens his hope and expectation. Paul sees the suffering of the world, and in it the many sufferings of himself, under Advent hope. For this great, universal groaning and moaning of the created world can be seen in two ways: on the one hand, as the agony, the painful, moaning agony of an incurable cancer patient, for example, who everyone knows is a hopeless case... He is heading inexorably towards terminal death. This is the pessimistic vision. On the other hand, all this suffering can also be seen as the labour of a woman in labour. There is pain, there is the screaming wail, there are the sweating sighs - but how! And yet all this in the happy hope that it is not in vain: a new life is being born, a new life is being born in the midst of this pain... This birth pain, this labour, is the way to a new, happy world. It is an Adventist vision of the world. So the whole created world groans and groans like a woman in labour. Paul hears the innumerable human wails, the lamentations of the dead, the lamentations of the elements, the pain of animal beings, as if all of them together, man and his world, were unconsciously, in an unarticulated language, "crying out", pleading, praying, crying out to God, crying out for salvation. It is impossible for God not to hear this cosmic cry! Just as the birth of new life must follow the birth of labour, so must this cry be followed by the rebirth of the world. This is where the created world is heading, towards a great cosmic rebirth! Everything leans, strains, pushes, hurries forward. That is why Paul can truly say, "For I consider that what we are now suffering is not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed to us". Hence these words of the apostle are to be understood and understood: 'The created world is eagerly awaiting the appearing of the sons of God', that is, the consummation of the redemption begun by Christ, the revelation in full glory. And this: "the created world itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption to the freedom of the glory of the sons of God".
This is the same great Advent hope that the Apostle John writes of: "And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall mourning nor crying nor pain be any more, for the firstfruits are passed away." But now those first ones have not passed away. The old world is still here, the old man is still here, and even in the born again man his old man is still there - but how much! - the labour is still going on, we do not yet see that new one that is being born, or we see it only in hope. But we see it in hope!
Paul is all the more certain of this hope because he feels in his own life as a believer the same impending prayerfulness. This is what he means when he says: 'you yourselves, who are the Spirit's gift, we ourselves also are praying within ourselves, waiting for the Son, the redemption of our flesh'. So he feels, he knows, that on the road to Damascus, when Jesus entered his life, something new began in him. The seeds of that new life to come had already sprouted in him, but the complete recreation of his life was not yet finished, what had already begun was not yet finished - but he knew that if Jesus had begun that good work in him, he would finish it by that great day when the glory of God would be complete. (Phil 1,6) In his heart there is already the knowledge of the glory of God, the face of Jesus, but this treasure is still in an earthen vessel. (2Cor 4,6-7) So the believer also lives now in this tension of "already yes - not yet", that is, in Advent hope, in expectation. He knows that he is the child of God, the heir of Jesus; but he has not yet come to receive this inheritance, he has to wait for it, but it is precisely in this hope that he waits with peaceful patience...
This confession of Paul, "we ourselves also pray within ourselves, looking for the Son, the redemption of our flesh," was made very clear to me last week when I visited a dear, aged servant of God, who had done much blessed service, while she could, among old and young. And now she is grieving, confined to a room in a weakened body, just counting the ministry opportunities that would still be waiting for her, but which she can no longer do. Or when, four years ago, I saw my former professor in Zurich, a dear servant of God, one of the brightest minds in the world, but now aged, with the sad symptoms of anaemia and brain atrophy - as if the whole tragic wreck of a man had been one great supplication, waiting for the salvation of the body. It was here that I felt that if it were not for this hope, we would be living: oh, the futility of all this life on earth! But how different it is to see suffering, the weakening of body and spirit, the pain of sickness, the lamentation of a weeping world, as the pain of childbirth, which already foreshadows its consoling ray, the great joy of new life, the light of the coming glory of God!
I said at the outset that to see the suffering of the world and of ourselves under such a hope is not a pillow of repose, but an instinct. First of all, it encourages me to wait patiently, not to despair, not to exaggerate things, because my life is going in the right direction. Paul says that if we suffer with Jesus, we will be glorified with him (Rom 8,17). With this in mind, let me try to rise above all that is hurting me, that is weighing me down physically or spiritually. One of the great commentators on this Word says: do not make a cross for myself out of every piece of wood that comes my way, but see it through, for it is not the end, but only the bridge between the "yes and the no". Trying to rise above the problems in such a way that I can at the same time rejoice in every little good, beautiful, true, pure thing that already has a glimmer of the glory of God to come, towards which I am moving.
Then, from the vision that I am one with the whole created world in suffering and in hope, from this vision, something of great compassionate love and solidarity with the whole world arises in me. It goes all the way back to St Francis of Assisi, who is said to have addressed even the wolf as: 'Brother wolf', and caressed the flower as: 'Brother little flower! It is not just an empty compassion for a suffering world, but a real suffering with it, when I too am pained by the pain of others, when my heart is pierced by the cries of children in Vietnam or the Congo, when my soul groans at the sadness of another person or family. From such suffering with the created world comes a spirit that cannot remain indifferent to the misery of another, that understands the misery and the suffering of another, and does all it can to help him in whatever way it can in its power and in its great Advent hope. This is active suffering together. This suffering is not a "Passion", but the most blessed action! Perhaps this is what Paul means by this expression: we suffer with Christ! For Jesus' greatest and most sacrificial action towards the suffering man was precisely his Passion, his suffering! And it still is today! It is in this suffering, this suffering of bearing the suffering of others with love, that those who belong to Jesus also participate.
And, finally, whoever suffers in this way with this created world can truly pray for this world with heart and soul! For all the miseries of this world. This is our most specific service of help for this world. Of course, it is also true, as the apostle says, that this prayer of ours is indeed very feeble and powerless. Often we are so at a loss as to what to ask, how can God bring out His glory from all this confusion? We do not know what to ask, nor how to ask, but in our powerlessness God is there to help us. The apostle says: the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible supplications. So, however feebly we may plead, let us leave it to Him who pleads with us. Then we can be even more sure that the redemption work begun on Calvary will not be abandoned, that God will not let Jesus' redemptive death go to waste, that He will certainly accomplish what He has begun. His glory will shine once more upon the recreated world. This is our great Advent expectation and hope!
Amen
Date: 30 November 1969.