ROMANS 8 - PAUL'S PRAYER?

Our Epistle reading for Sunday is Paul’s letter to the Roman 8:26-39. 

It may be the perfect prayer for our times. Who among us does not need help with our weakness during this troubled time? Sighs too deep for words (tears in some versions of the Bible, groaning in others) are all too familiar these days. 

But the reading exhorts us to have faith, because all things work together for those who love God. If God is for us, who can be against us? Paul reminds us that God gave up his only Son for all of us. How can we imagine such love – to give up your only Son? 

We can imagine it. Because we know it happened. And we know that Christ intercedes for us, from the right hand of God. 

And we know, in one of the most beautiful passages in Scripture, that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 

Paul then describes all the things that cannot separate us from the love of God: death, life, angels, rulers, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth – not anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Reading this passage aloud gives it special resonance and meaning. 

Christ loves us. He will intercede for us, even in the most troubled times. And the Holy Spirit is with us always.

Thanks be to God.

​Mary McCue