(Rom 8:18-25; Ps 126:1,4-6; Lk 13:18-21)
“We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now” (Romans 8:22)
It was two o’clock in the morning as about twenty of us, tired and bleary-eyed, sat in the waiting room outside the maternity wing of the hospital. Our first grandchild was due to be born at eight o’clock the previous night, and she was much slower coming than expected. So we waited with excitement and some trepidation. What was going on in there? Sometime in the wee hours of that morning my son-in-law emerged with the news that a baby girl had just come into the world.
Waiting is not always fun. It gets us upset because we don’t know when the expected event will occur. Yet it is our expectation that sustains us during these times.
St. Paul tells us that all of creation is sitting in a waiting room. “For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God.” When the children of God are delivered from the womb of this world, “creation itself (will) be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
And it is not as though we are standing outside watching a young mother endure labor pains. We are right there in the delivery room sharing in the same pains: “but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
We who have experienced the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit, sometimes think our groaning days are over. Not so. We are the ones pregnant with new life, waiting for it to emerge from the final womb. We live in hope for “what we do not see; we wait with endurance.”
When we go through periods of anguish in our Christian lives, we sometimes wonder, what’s wrong with me? Is God punishing me? Did I make a wrong turn somewhere?
Paul answers our question by giving meaning to what is happening in all of creation now. His words do not free us from the groaning, but they set our hearts at peace, knowing God is readying us for a new birth. And we are encouraged by the fact that “the Spirit…comes to the aid of our weakness…(interceding) with inexpressible groanings.” We never have to go through this alone.
“Those who sow in tears will reap with cries of joy” (Ps 126:5)
