Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Jan 14, 2025

14 Jan 2025

Text: Rom 5:1-21

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

“We rejoice in our sufferings,” says St. Paul.  And the apostle goes on to say that suffering leads to endurance, to character, and to hope.  Some Christians in history took this verse out of context and intentionally inflicted suffering upon themselves.  Suffering became a kind of sacrament to some people, even to the point of beating themselves bloody. 

Suffering is part of what it means to live in a fallen world.  God told Eve that “in pain” she would “bring forth children.”  God told Adam that “by the sweat of [his] face” he would eke out a living, and then he would die (Gen 3:16, 19).  And the first two children born to Adam and Eve would give us the first murder, and a banishment of the murderer.  Ever since the fall, philosophers have tried to make sense of suffering.  Stoics reacted to suffering with willpower, seeing suffering as a good thing.  To this day, we have the expression, “No pain, no gain.”

But what is the context here, dear friends?  Paul says, “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Because of God’s grace shown us through the cross, through the suffering and death of Jesus, and because we receive this gift by faith – we see suffering in a different light. 

We don’t see suffering as our friend, as something we rush to inflict on ourselves.  As our Lord said, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt 6:34).  We Christians neither seek out suffering as evidence of our salvation, nor see it as evidence of God’s rejection.  Rather we understand that it is part of the fallen world.  We understand that suffering and death are alien to God’s good creation.  We understand that we are sinful and fallen and this is why we suffer.  But we also confess that because of the suffering and death that Jesus took upon Himself at His passion and death, out of love for us, to be the atoning sacrifice for us, to destroy sin, death, and the devil for us – suffering is a defanged and defeated enemy.  Because we know that suffering is temporary and death is transitory – we can endure these things. 

We see this when the daughters of Eve overcome the pain of childbirth.  Our Lord points this out that “when a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world” (John 16:21).  Her suffering, though it is a result of sin and the fall, has become a defeated enemy, and her love for the child overcomes the suffering.  We see this in the sons of Adam who labor, who fight in wars, and who give their lives for that which they love, be it their God, the church, their country, or their families.  We see St. Stephen rejoicing in His own suffering and death: “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 8:56).

Our suffering is not only a reminder of our fallenness, but also a reminder of our Lord’s passion and death – and His resurrection, His atonement for us, and His defeat of the very evil which caused our suffering to begin with.  We mock death with St. Paul, “O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55).   And as Paul says, this is “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”  This is true as the apostle says, “since we have been justified by faith,” and because “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

And this is why, dear brothers and sisters, we have overcome suffering and death, not as Stoics, but as Christians.  Since “we have also obtained this access by faith into this grace in which we stand, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings.” 

As the apostle Paul teaches us, in times of want and in times of plenty, we can indeed “do all things through Him who strengthens” us (Phil 4:12-13).  And “if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom 14:8).  And as the apostle Peter teaches us: “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.  To Him be the dominion forever and ever” (1 Pet 5:10-11).

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.