I Believe in the Sun, Even When it is Not Shining

I Believe in the Sun, Even When it is Not Shining

Romans 8:26-39

Our passage from Romans, today, is possibly my favorite passage in the Bible. At least it contains verses that have been quite meaningful for me. It starts off with the image of a person who is so burdened with life that he or she is unable even to form words to pray, and it concludes with a strong affirmation that, no matter what, God’s love will never, ever, let you go.

Let us hear the word of God as it comes to us through Romans 8:26-39

Thinking about the opening verses I am reminded of a phrase that I have often heard: “As the Bible says, God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” My favorite response to that was from a gentleman who added, “I just wish God didn’t have such a high opinion of me.”  Well, frankly, I’ve searched. Those words are not biblical, and there are times they ring rather hollow for me.

Yesterday I woke up to the news about the growing tragedy in Oslo, Norway. On Friday I had heard bits and pieces about a bombing and shooting. A number of people were killed. Honestly, I don’t listen to the news like I used to, so the information I had was sketchy. Yesterday morning, I had a “breaking news” alert from the BBC on my computer. I read the story of how a man, identified as a Christian fundamentalist, set off a bomb in a business district in Oslo. He, then, traveled to an island where a youth summer camp was going on. Dressed as a police officer he quickly gained their confidence and curiosity, and once a large group had gathered he started shooting. Over 85 young people were murdered at a place where parents had sent them to learn, grow, and have fun. My heart goes out to the survivors who are traumatized, to the families that are devastated, and a nation that shares the horror and the pain of these events. On this side of the Atlantic, we know something about the shared, national tragedies and the pain of senseless shootings.

The scale of the tragedy is overwhelming, but it doesn’t take large scale events like that to cause us to wonder, “Where is God?” In our individual, personal lives we face our own traumas. A boating accident on Black Creek took the lives of two teenagers several months ago. And a father is charged for the carelessness that led to those deaths. We face abusive relationships, marital infidelity, cutbacks at work that lead to layoffs, financial hardships that leave little option other than to default on a mortgage and walk away from the home that you love, and the list can go on. The Psalmist laments:

As the deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When shall I come and behold the face of God?

My tears have been my food day and night

while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”

(Psalm 42:1-3)

Several years ago, before I returned to the Orange Park community, there was a time when I knew something of this burden. The events of my life were not nearly so significant as the death of a child or the loss of my home. But my burdens were significant to me and my depression in response to those burdens was real, to me. And as I sat to do my morning devotional, my mind had shut down and I could not think, I could not pray. No words would come. I would sit there and let out a heavy sigh. Part of my devotional included some reading. This particular morning the reading included the opening words to our passage today. “Likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” And I let out a sigh. And I spontaneously responded, “Hear my prayer, Lord.”

For me the comment that “God does not give us more than we can handle” is not much comfort. Life will often give us burdens greater than we are able to bear. What is scriptural is that whatever life puts upon us, whatever we endure because of the choices and actions of others, or whatever pain we bring upon ourselves by our own choices and actions, God is always present and God will walk with us through the darkness of the valley. It took time but I kept offering my sighs as a kind of breath-prayer. Eventually, I began to think more clearly; I began to address my situation one little piece at a time; and eventually my depression lifted, and I could affirm the hope of the Psalmist. As he began by identifying with the deer longing for water, he continued his song, saying:

“These things I remember as I pour out my soul:

how I went with the throng,

and led them in procession to the house of God,

with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,

a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”  

This is where I would like to turn our attention to the closing part of our passage for today. Early in the passage Paul affirms that God knows us completely. God searches our hearts and knows our minds. Now, I don’t know about you, but there are times, for me, when that can be a little scary. If God knows my secret thoughts and understands better than I do my motivations and actions, then I am totally in deep do-do. So, with this understanding of God’s understanding, Paul poses the question: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” So, I stand before God naked, stripped of my pretenses, the excellence of my work, the clothing of the roles that I put on, the arrogance I use to hide my fear that I might be wrong, and a myriad of other ways that I try to protect myself from being truly known. I am naked before God, completely exposed, and I tremble in fear because anyone who knows me so clearly could never truly love me. And Paul offers his response to his own question. Can anything separate us from God’s love? “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor power, 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.” There is nothing in all creation that can separate YOU from God’s love for YOU! Do I hear an “Amen” to that?

Let me clarify a few mis-conceptions about God’s love. First, some believe that if God loves me then God will protect me from anything bad happening. Wouldn’t that be nice. If I profess my love for God and God declares love for me, then life would be like a rose garden. Except, as the song goes, “I never promised you a rose garden.” You would have to search pretty hard for any biblical evidence that believing in God and following Jesus will make life easy. Just the opposite is promised. Life is bound to be difficult. The promise is that “I will be with you, always!”

Another mis-conception that is not often acknowledged is that God’s love is like our human sentimentality. It goes something like this: God has loving feelings for us, but truthfully, there is not much direct involvement until the time when this life comes to an end and God welcomes us into heaven. God created the world, put things in motion, and stands back allowing people to do the stupid or good things that people will do, and only occasionally reaches into our world to do some miracle or to shake things up. That’s more like an artist who creates a painting and then stands back to admire her work. The truth is: God is intimately involved with her creation. God is wooing us to new insights, new understanding, new expressions of our love and compassion and concern for others. But God works quietly, unobtrusively, almost imperceptibly. We need to pay attention to notice God’s presence and God’s loving activity. Truth is God’s love is not a distant sentimentality. God’s love is active and present. It is compassion, it is grace, and it is wooing us to respond with our own expressions of compassion and grace.

Finally, there is the natural tendency to think that if we cannot see God, if we cannot feel God’s presence, then God must be absent. When we are overwhelmed with the situations of our lives that cause us to feel separated from God, it is easy to think God is absent. When we are disappointed by a turn of events that feels unjust, we may blame God for not being more present or involved. When we see news of tragedies, like this horrible situation in Oslo, Norway, it is easy to think like those who taunted the psalmist, saying, “Where is your God?”

I am reminded of a day, not so long ago. It was a day of constant rain. The clouds were thick and the sky was dark and the rain caused a dreary feeling. One person stood with me outside a building. We were waiting for a moment to dash to our cars. He said, “I guess the sun’s not going to shine today.” I thought about that a moment and realized, the sun IS still shining. If the sun were not shining we could not survive on this planet. The sun is certainly shining, even though we cannot see it.

Some of you may be able to remember first hand the days when the Nazi occupied much of Europe. In Poland there was a strong resistance mounted by Jews and by other Poles. Even so, millions of Jews were sent to camps where they were murdered in mass numbers. After the war, words were found written on a wall. Some report they were in the ghetto of Warsaw. Others report they were in a cell at Auchwitz. Perhaps they were written in both places. The words state,

“I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining.
I believe in love even when I don’t feel it.
I believe in God even when He is silent.”

If today you can affirm that life is good, and you have a song in your heart, and you can easily celebrate the joy of God’s love for you . . . enjoy the blessing and listen for those ways in which
you are being called to share that love.

If you feel burdened by events in your life, or are overwhelmed by consequences of decisions made by yourself or others, if you find that the only prayer you can muster is a “sigh too deep for words,” there is hope. Let your sigh be heard as your prayer and trust with the Psalmist that
“I will again praise him my Lord and my God.”
“There is nothing that can separate you

from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And the sun is still shining, even if you don’t see it.









Jess McCrosky
Orange Park Presbyterian Church
July 24, 2011