Everyone has different ideas about what Christianity is all about – what its purpose is; what its goal is. As you know, there are many ‘denominations’ – different groupings of Christians who prefer to think of and practise their religion in different ways. The sad thing of course is that such divisions tend not only to create very unchristian attitudes between the different groups, they tend also to create more divisions –divisions within the divisions! (We should note that the New Testament makes no mention of ‘denominations’: instead, it speaks only of ‘the local church’ and of ‘the universal church’.) Indeed, Jesus’ famous ‘high priestly prayer for his disciples in John chapter 17 is a prayer for unity - ‘I pray, Father, that they may be one’. It was as if Jesus knew full well the destructive power personal tastes and preferences can and do exert within religion.
If we ask ourselves what is the purpose and goal of Christianity – I mean on an everyday, practical basis - on this question Jesus and the NT writers agree: it is to become more like Jesus through a personal relationship with him, to be in him and for him to be in us. The exercise of faith is not just intellectual, it is practical, it is personal, it is relational.
So let us for a moment put away our preconceptions as to what we think the goal and purpose of Christianity is and let’s see what Paul has to say. I realise that some people aren’t very keen on some of the things Paul has to say about Christianity. It is very easy to claim that some 2000 years and a very different culture from ours means that we can take him or leave him as we wish – and of course he’s not here to argue! – but given the depth of his relationship with Jesus, the faithfulness with which he adheres to Jesus’ teaching as we encounter it in the Gospel records, and the sheer wisdom of his arguments, I always find myself far more sceptical of Paul’s detractors, their all too often predetermined and self-indulgent agendas, than I am about the authenticity and integrity of what he has to say.
This is not just because my interests, training, and experience lie in theology and in the Middle East; it is because I know what people with agendas can be like. There is an arrogance about much ‘modern’ Western theology –by theology I mean talking about God and about us in relation to him - that should cause us to question the agendas and motives behind it. I am not saying that Paul has said the final word in every subject he touches on, or that he is not sometimes difficult to understand, or that 2000 years and a different culture do not pose problems for us: but, simply casting Paul aside because we deem his insights irrelevant to our modern way of life or thinking is, I believe, not only a short-sighted and naive approach but also a spiritually dangerous one.
There are, if you look closely, some fascinating parallels between this arrogance - this ‘we know better than you because we are culturally and politically more advanced than you’ - in such modern western theology and the West’s attitude to Middle Eastern countries and culture generally. But I will leave that to my study leave lectures next month!
I have said on other occasions that Jesus is quite clear in his teaching about what is the purpose and goal of his coming to earth (his incarnation), of his sacrificial death, of his reconciling us to God, and of his founding his Church – the ‘body’ of those who belong to him. He wants us to know God as Father, he wants us to know the Father’s love; and he wants us to allow his Spirit to live in us so that we become more like him.
In short, he wants us to know that fullness of life, that peace –which comes from knowing we are reconciled; and that joy – which comes in his service; service which, if faithful, will involve our suffering for his sake.
Now with this teaching of Jesus’ in mind, let’s compare it with what Paul says here. I think you will be surprised by just how much Paul and Jesus agree.
One thing we must first understand though is this: because God loves you and me and wants us to become more like Jesus, he is much more interested in our character then he is in our comfort. Yes, he wants us to know his peace and his joy; but these things simply are not possible unless we are also willing to suffer for his sake. But ‘suffering’ is not a popular subject, especially, we might well add, in the Western Church. If we examine what people in the West think about the goal and purpose of Christianity, suffering is certainly not the first thing which comes to their mind! Comfort? Yes. Community? Yes. Consolation? Yes. Curiosity even? Yes! But character-building through suffering for Jesus’ sake is something that only mature and maturing Christians realise and indeed welcome?
Let’s turn to these verses. The first verses 1& 2 remind us that because of Jesus and through Jesus we have the right to approach the very presence of God himself. We are at peace with him; we are no longer in a state of enmity on account of our sinfulness because Jesus has reconciled us to God though his sacrificial death – a point Paul reminds us of later in verses 6, 8, & 10. This new status we receive as a result of God’s grace. It is a status unearned, undeserved, unobtainable except through grace – God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. It is something in which we put our faith – a reasoned and reasonable faith based on the reliable and reassuring evidence of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. But it is also something to be celebrated (‘boasted in’ NRSV) because our hope is in the sure promise of God and in sharing his glory.
But ‘that’s not all’ v3, we may actually boast in, i.e. celebrate, our sufferings for his sake. Why? Well because v4 sharing in his sufferings produces in us a Christ-like character; a character of such depth and quality as assures us of the truth of Jesus’ promise of eternal life (our hope) and is reassured by the experience, through suffering for Jesus’ sake, of the deep love of God for us.
This is not all in the head - some cold, clinical intellectual assent to an idea or a concept. God is not a proposition to be proved; no, he is a person to be encountered. In the historical Jesus we encounter the one who embodied God; in the risen Jesus we encounter proof that God’s promise of the hope of eternal life is true; and in the spirit of Jesus who lives in hearts that will make room for him, we may encounter such love for us as confirms that hope.
I love these passages in Paul’s letter to the Romans. They are at one and the same time shocking reality checks about us but also tremendous encouragements and reassurance about God’s incredible love for us; love shown, principally, in sending his son Jesus to reconcile us to him in an act of the most costly love. It is passages like these – so wonderfully perceptive both about God and about humanity - that not only anger the atheist scientists like Dawkins and Hawkins or the humanist Libertines like Hitchens and Christopher Fry but also destroy the ridiculous caricatures of Christianity they insist on presenting. Verses 6 – 11 are a reminder in the most unflattering words of the painful truths about humanity, yet also of the amazing rescue operation mounted by God for us through his son. To paraphrase what Paul is saying here – the truth about ourselves is unpalatable, ues; but now, through Jesus, we are not only saved from our just deserts, we are reconciled to God, we have been offered new life, and we have every reason to boast of (to celebrate, to proclaim) this wonderful liberation, this amazing grace.
A few words about suffering to finish. What can the Christian say and do? The first thing to say is that while we cannot know the reasons or answers ‘Why?’ to specific cases of suffering – at least not in this lifetime, there are some things we can rationally and reasonably say. First, that the answer given and repeated in verses 6, 8, and 10 shows that God’s concern for our suffering and his deep love for us is not in question. Secondly, the proper Christian response to the suffering of others is to share that suffering in as full and selfless a way as possible. And, thirdly – and this is perhaps the most contentious point – you and I cannot grow to maturity in Christ, we cannot become more like him, unless we are prepared to share his sufferings – which means both to share the sufferings of others (my second point) but also to suffer for his name’s sake, that is, to stand up for him and be counted. I know that’s a tough order in this world in which we live, a world which increasingly tries to mock or marginalise Christians; but the reward of doing so is immeasurably more than any reward this world can offer or any pain or persecution it can throw at us.
Doctors and psychologists have long considered the role of suffering in personality and behaviour generally. Even in personal suffering – pain, loss, or whatever, it is the way people react to suffering that is important: not only this, but the evidence strongly suggests that whilst it is not suffering itself that makes a person grow as a person, a person does not grow as a person without suffering. Comfort does little or nothing to create character.
Suffering without the knowledge of God’s love and the experience of the love of others – of family and friends – tends to produce bitterness and resentment. But a relationship with God gives us a sense of proportion about our suffering – as it does everything in life. He wants us to know his love, his peace, his joy, his hope; and all these so much so that we can even ‘boast in our sufferings’.
The Christian’s goal is to become more like Christ; our purpose is to serve his purposes – whatever they may be. This is the way to that fullness of life Jesus promised. It is something to consider very deeply in this season of Lent.
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