Romans 5:1-11 - The Paradox of Lent: Joy in Suffering - February 25, 2018

Lent is perhaps the most challenging and rewarding season in the Christian church year. Not just because it focuses our attention on Christ and him crucified, but because it forces us to confront some of Christianity’s most difficult paradoxes. What’s a paradox? A paradox is statement that seems contradictory but is nonetheless true. Jesus presented a paradox when he declared whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. (Mark 8:35) You must lose your life to save it? This would be nonsense coming from anyone but Christ – who lost his life only to take it up again 3 days later! Authentic Christianity – as defined by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount – is filled with paradoxes: the poor will inherit the riches of heaven, only those who mourn will be comforted, and it is a blessing to be persecuted. (Matthew 5:3-4, 11) But perhaps the most difficult paradox Lent presents is the one before us this morning: finding joy in suffering. It seems to be foolish and nonsensical. But in the season of Lent, nothing could be truer for Christ and for Christians. Christ’s suffering produced peace and our suffering produces hope.

In the years following the conclusion of WWI, many people thought – and said – that they had witnessed the war to end all wars. They imagined that future generations would learn from the death, depravity and violence and never repeat the same mistakes. They believed that the Treaty of Versailles would establish a peace that would last. Time has a way of dashing fickle human hope, doesn’t it? Two decades later, the world was once again at war. Today armed conflicts and violent revolutions carry on all around the world. Terrorism – both foreign and domestic – are a constant concern. Right here in Madison the lack of peace is demonstrated every day in the news. Shootings and robberies and road rage. Even more sobering, we often don’t even have to look outside of our own homes to find the absence of peace. This universal lack of peace, as bad as it is, is only symptomatic of a deeper problem: the lack of peace between God and man. Sin separates us from God. It earns us his wrath. It makes us hostile to God and God hostile to us. And we were helpless to do anything about it. But Paul says that God did something about it: therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

With the word “justified” Paul takes us into a courtroom. God’s courtroom. A courtroom where we are the defendants – whether we like it or not. The charges against us fall into 10 categories: failure to fear, love and trust in God above all things; failure to pray, praise and give thanks; failure to gladly hear and learn the Word of God; failure to honor and obey those in authority; failure to help and befriend those in need; failure to lead a pure and decent life; failure to take words and actions in the kindest possible way; failure to be content. We know – and God knows – that we are guilty as charged. But then something shocking happens. The judge slams down his gavel and declares that we are innocent of all charges, that our records have been expunged, that we are free to go. If such a thing were to happen today, there would be outrage and cries of injustice and marches in the streets. How is this possible?

Paul’s “therefore” points back to chapter 4 which tells us how this is possible: [Jesus] was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (Romans 4:25) Here’s that paradox thing again. Because Jesus endured the exact opposite of peace: a cruel and bitter death on a cross – we now have peace with God. It may seem contradictory, but it was the only way. And Paul tells us why a few verses later: you see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

What does this mean? Have you heard the name Aaron Feis? I bet most of you know the name Nikolas Cruz. Cruz was the young man who shot and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida a week and a half ago. Aaron Feis was an assistant football coach and security guard at the same school and when Cruz came rampaging down the hall, Feis threw himself in front of a group of students, saving them from death but dying in the process. Feis made the ultimate sacrifice – he gave up his own life to save others. That kind of heroic, selfless sacrifice is rare in our world. But as heroic and selfless as Aaron Feis was, he didn’t do what Christ did. Feis sacrificed himself for innocent students. Christ sacrificed himself for powerless, ungodly, sinners. Christ did the equivalent of taking a bullet – not for innocent students, but for Nikolas Cruz. Christ didn’t die for his friends, but his enemies.

And the result is that through faith in him, we have peace with God. This is not the peace that our world dreams about. This is not the end of school shootings, it’s not the end of sexual abuse by powerful men; it’s not a peace that can be achieved by getting rid of guns or urging love and tolerance. Standing justified before God does not mean that we will always feel “at peace” or have peace in our hearts and homes. This peace is far better. This an objective peace – a peace that exists outside of us. It means that – regardless of what is happening in our lives – our relationship with God has been changed: instead of being his enemies, we are now his friends, his children.  

And the devil simply cannot tolerate this. He works tirelessly to make us doubt God’s gift; to make us believe we are somehow responsible for our justification. One of his more sinister methods is to make us wonder and worry about dying in sin – that is, dying or having Jesus return in judgment at the very moment where you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing. What happens if we don’t have time to repent and be forgiven? Will you go to hell? That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? The reality is that we will be sinning when Jesus returns or we die. Sinful desires pass through our minds at the speed of thought. Sinful words, actions and attitudes are perpetual part of our lives. But Paul grants us comfort and the assurance that peace with God isn’t something we have and lose as often as we sin and repent. He says: we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. The wonderful reality is that peace with God is not something that we get today and lose tomorrow. The peace Christ died to win for us has changed our status before God forever. Wait, aren’t we still sinners? Yes. This is another paradox of Christianity. Luther summarized this paradox with the Latin phrase simul justus et peccator – a Christian is “simultaneously righteous and a sinner.” [1] Yes, we are always sinning, but through faith Christ’s righteousness always covers us. Where sin increased, grace increased all the more. (Romans 5:20) So that, while Lent is certainly a time for serious self-examination and repentance, it is also a time to rejoice. Rejoice in Christ’s suffering because through it he produced peace with God. Peace for sinners. Peace for you. Peace forever.

That’s all good news, but if we stopped there we might leave with a skewed view of the Christian life. A view that, unfortunately, many Christians actually hold. It’s the view and the expectation that because Christ has established peace with God that we will experience peace in our lives here and now. That’s not true. That’s a distortion and cheapening of the Gospel. The second – and perhaps more difficult – paradox Paul presents is the paradox of finding joy in the reality of our suffering.

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Rejoicing in Christ’s suffering is one thing – his suffering is over, he is now reigning in heaven’s glory – but rejoicing in my suffering? That’s something else entirely, right? In fact, isn’t it when we are suffering that we are most tempted to doubt God’s love, to believe that Christ’s suffering was all for nothing – most tempted to give up our hope in God and hope for heaven? How can suffering possibly lead to joy and hope?

The first question is: what kind of suffering is Paul talking about? Simply any and all suffering that come as a result of being believers living in a sinful world controlled by Satan. This includes the persecution, ridicule, and animosity we face at work, from friends, from the world because we are Christians. This includes the challenges, sacrifices, and effort we choose to make only because we are Christians. (For example: choosing to pass on a job promotion that would mean working Sunday mornings or as parents, adopting a more humble lifestyle (maybe living on one instead of two incomes) in order to be able to give our children a full-time Christian education.) Suffering includes the problems that are part of the normal human condition: sadness, loneliness, weakness, sickness and death. And, as Jacob showed in our first lesson (Genesis 28:10-17), it even includes the suffering we bring on ourselves by our own disobedience and lack of faith. We suffer all of these things because, while Christ has already won our salvation – we are not in heaven yet. And yet, even in suffering, Paul says that we rejoice.

Why? Because we know where the road of suffering starts and where it ends. It starts with hope – the hope of the glory of God. In the life of a Christian, suffering leads to perseverance. Perseverance is the quality of bearing up under adversity. Perseverance leads to character. The picture behind character comes from the testing of metals by refining them with fire. Character is formed only through testing, trials, pressure. And, when we have been put through the wringer and come out the other side, what is the result? Paul comes full circle: an even greater hope for heaven. The PyeongChang Olympics have wrapped up – but Paul likens the life of the Christian to the life of an Olympic athlete. For four years those athletes trained, dieted, and sacrificed. They disciplined their bodies and their minds. Why? The hope of Olympic gold. Hope is where their training began and where it ended. The Christian life begins with justification, the gift of God in Christ that guarantees our “not-guilty” status in his courtroom. And then, as we pass through the trials and troubles of life God strengthens us in that hope by showing us, in sometimes painful ways, that this world is not all it’s cracked up to be; by creating in us a longing for something better; by increasing our hope for the glory of heaven.

And, unlike the hope of the majority of Olympic athletes, this hope does not disappoint. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Jesus has already done the hardest thing – he has reconciled us – God’s enemies – to God. In Paul’s eyes, then, nothing could be easier than bringing those who already stand before God not guilty through this life and through the Last Judgment to the glory of heaven. That hope is why we can do the unthinkable: rejoice even in our sufferings.

Is it hard to understand? Is it hard to believe when our suffering seems especially bitter and meaningless? Yes. That’s why we need Lent this year and every year. That’s why we need to see and understand that we are following in the footsteps of our Savior – footsteps that lead through suffering and death to a resurrection to glory. The cross was necessary for him because only his suffering could purchase our forgiveness and produce peace with God. The cross is necessary for us because only suffering trains and refines our hope – not for a better life now – but for the full and permanent glory of heaven. First the cross, then the crown for Christ and for us. Yes, this is one of Lent’s most difficult paradoxes. But this is the paradox that guarantees and sustains your hope of heaven. Amen.  

[1] LW 25:336 (On Romans 7) “Now notice what I said above, that the saints at the same time as they are righteous are also sinners; righteous because they believe in Christ, whose righteousness covers them and is imputed to them, but sinners because they do not fulfill the Law, are not without concupiscence, and are like sick men under the care of a physician; they are sick in fact but healthy in hope and in the fact that they are beginning to be healthy, that is, they are “being healed.” They are people for whom the worst possible thing is the presumption that they are healthy, because they suffer a worse relapse.”