The Words That Give Life Only at Our Lowest Point

The Power of Words — and Their Limits

When my son was three years old, he discovered the power of words. He was a very sweet and tender child, and one day, when we were driving home from his grandparents' house, he said very mournfully, "I lost my grandma." Now, just to be clear, his grandma had not died. She was just fine. We had just left the house and gone home. But he said it so sadly, so tenderly, so movingly — and at that moment, he saw how powerful his words were.

We were deeply affected by what he said. "Oh, honey!" So he started using the phrase all the time. "I lost my cookie. I lost my TV. I lost my stick." He thought his words and his tone were the power that would move us just by themselves. But eventually, as he found out, his tender words that he thought would move us just sounded ridiculous.

The Greatest Chapter in the Bible

Today, here in Romans 8, we have beautiful, tender, powerful words before us — some of the most beautiful words ever written:

The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

God works all things together for the good.

If God is for us, who can be against us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? In all these things, we are more than conquerors.

Some have called it the greatest chapter in the Bible, and perhaps deservedly so. This is a thrilling mountaintop vista of the Christian faith from which we can see all manner of God's goodness. These words have been a candle in the dark, a lifeline in a storm, a rock to stand on and a foundation to build a life on. Maybe you've experienced the power of these words in your own life.

When Beautiful Words Become Cheap

But these words, so transcendent and soaring, can also just be put on a coffee cup, or a Christian poster, or stitched into a pillow. These verses are a goldmine for Christian bric-a-brac. And these words as slogans turn from beautiful and powerful to cheap in an instant.

Maybe these lines have been twisted into cheap words that you've heard before. Or perhaps simply, undramatically, we keep these words as articles of faith in half-forgotten Sunday school lessons — scripture trapped in amber, unreflected on. And eventually, these words are found wanting when real demands and needs are put upon them.

Even worse, these words, frozen on inspirational posters or throw pillows, harden and become weapons with which to whack other people rather than comfort them. Perhaps you've experienced these beautiful words as false medicine, or even as poison, or as clubs.

Take the words we know so well: "For those who love God, all things work together for the good." These words can turn into simply a Christian way of saying, "Don't complain. Don't doubt. Everything happens for a reason. This seems bad, but don't worry." Sometimes the words "In all these things, we are more than conquerors" have been turned into something meaning God is on my side, and unless you're experiencing victory, you don't have enough faith.

Before Chapter 8, There's Always Chapter 7

I think the Apostle Paul would pull out what little hair he had on his head if he saw this chapter being used this way. The power of Paul's teaching was not his words. He says himself he doesn't know all the best words. In another letter, he says he doesn't use lofty speech or wisdom. His message didn't come in plausible words, or wisdom, or power. Paul never believed in the power or the beauty of his words, or even his ideas. What Paul believed in was the God who revealed himself in Christ through suffering and struggle.

We can tend to think of the Christian faith as an idea, but it's actually a true story arising out of a particular struggle, unfolding in a particular place.

Do you know how I know that chapter 8 of Romans is not the end or the beginning of this story? Well, simply — it's chapter 8. And chapter 8 is never the beginning of the story. Here's a secret to good Bible reading, in fact, reading any book of any kind: before chapter 8, you'll always find chapter 7.

And so we need to ask what happens in chapter 7 that makes chapter 8 so powerful and true. In chapter 7, we find almost the opposite posture. Paul is in despair, and he cries out:

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death — my sin, my struggle, all my weaknesses and failure?

He clings to hope and says, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." But he is sure to remind us of the truth: "I serve God with my mind, but in my body, I serve sin."

There are no coffee mug verses there. No posters. Just raw human description of real human struggle.

St. Paul the Shipwrecked — and So Are We

There's a church in San Francisco, a Catholic church, called St. Paul the Shipwrecked. I think Paul would appreciate that. St. Paul the Shipwrecked. That's him. That's us. We are all shipwrecked.

And these words in chapter 8 cannot be used as clubs when they come from a place of deep vulnerability. These truths are there for you when you feel wretched, when you have reached the end of your rope, when you've come face to face with your own inadequacy, when you've really read into chapter 7 all your pain and struggle. That's when chapter 8 gives life.

Holiness and hope do not grow in mountaintop experiences of worship or wonder. Faith and hope grow in the valley of waiting, the valley of failure, the valley of grief. When you can't find inspiration or energy, when you don't have an inspirational coffee cup — it's there that you discover that God works all things out for the good of those who love him.

It's not advice to give to others, but a single light in the night that flickers, barely guiding you past the rocks of despair. It's not a light or a torch to shine in the face of others, but a gift for you in the midst of darkness.

It's there that you discover the words "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" as an invitation — not to arrogance, but to a surprising, unbidden hallelujah when you are at your lowest point.

The Saint Who Kept Showing Up

I know this: some of you, and me, have met God during despair, during divorce, during disaster, during death. It's there that we met Christ on the cross — the Jesus of the scars — who is known to wretches like you and me.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend sent me the story of a saint. Usually, I find the stories of saints to be unattainable, maybe intolerable. They seem too good to be true. But I fell in love with this saint's story. It astonished me.

His name was St. Mark Ji Tianxiang. He had been a respectable doctor, a Christian, when he became ill with a stomach ailment and did what many people in 19th-century China did — he prescribed himself opium, and he became an addict. As an addict, he lost his job and his reputation, and eventually he lost his church. He went to confession over the years and kept confessing, but since he couldn't overcome his addiction, the priest said he was not truly repentant and banned him from communion until he could show signs of improvement.

But St. Mark knew the words: "What can separate us from the love of God in Christ?" Can addiction? Can the judgment of the church? He was refused the sacraments for thirty years, but he kept showing up — because he knew nothing could keep him from the love of Christ.

In 1900, as a Christian, he was gathered up in the Boxer Rebellion, where Christians were punished, and he himself was put to death as a Christian. It was then that he was made into a saint.

Words That Give Life

Paul's words are beautiful only when they give life — only when they're applied to our point of pain — so that we can say with real conviction, like St. Mark and everybody who's truly struggled:

Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen and amen and amen.