Breaking the Surface & the Assurance of God

Tommy's Rock on Upper Saranac Lake ©usfoundation.net

Romans 8:26-39

Matthew 13:31-33,44-52

As our daughters learn to swim, putting their faces in the water can be daunting. It can take a few moments to work up the courage to break the surface. Over time, though, we become comfortable with what we once feared. Nothing about the water changes, but our assurance that we can move into the unknown becomes firm.

For the past four weeks, Paul has been teaching us about assurance: assurance that the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ is stronger than everything that threatens us. Notice what Paul does not say. He does not say that suffering isn't real, nor does he suggest that we will never be afraid. His claim is that none of these things has the power to separate us from the love of God. Tom Wright writes that the end of Romans 8 "deserves to be written in letters of fire on the living tablets of our hearts." [1]

“For I am convinced that 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.”

And yet, even this assurance can be misunderstood. Paul's declaration that "God is for us" can sound triumphalist, as though Christians are simply claiming that God has taken our side, much like opposing armies throughout history have each claimed divine favor. But that is not Paul's point. The assurance of Romans 8 does not rest on the goodness of our cause or the strength of our faith; rather, it rests on the character of God.

This distinction is essential. When the focus shifts to us, our assurance evaporates. Am I good enough? Faithful enough? Certain enough? How can I be sure? Conversely, when our attention returns to God, assurance comes rushing back. The foundation of our assurance is the steadfast love of God, and it is from this foundation that Paul launches his soaring claim:

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

A few years pass, and the child who was once afraid to put their face beneath the water is now standing on Tommy’s Rock.[2] Many of you know how much taller it looks when we’re standing on top of it. And for a first-time jumper, the same questions resurface: Will this hurt me? Can I do this? And yet, so often, first-timers emerge from the water joyful, not because the water wasn’t cold or the jump wasn’t scary, but because we discover that the thing we fear is not the end.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Then we become teenagers. We are no longer scared of Tommy’s Rock, but other people certainly scare us. There is probably no season of life when we are more convinced that one embarrassing moment or mistake can define us forever. We cringe about our awkward conversations and replay our mistakes over and over again in the shower or when trying to fall asleep. Yet those of us who have emerged from those waters often smile at our younger selves. Not because those moments didn't hurt, but because they were never the whole story.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Then one day, we stand before an altar or in a delivery room, and we begin to discover an entirely new kind of fear. We can’t protect the people we love from disappointment. We can’t keep them from getting sick or making mistakes. We can’t live their lives for them. Marriage, parenthood, and long-term friendship are, in many ways, a long education in letting go. Paul writes that “the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.” He is reminding us that, even when we have no words left, God does not leave us alone.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Years pass. Our bodies become less dependable. The things that once seemed permanent begin to disappear: friends move away, parents die, and children build lives of their own. Retirement, which once sounded like freedom, can sometimes feel surprisingly uncertain and lonely. Here, too,

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Eventually, all of us find ourselves standing where none of us wants to stand. It is the final moment, when every one of us discovers that there are some enemies we cannot overcome. Death appears to have the final word. It stretches before us like an ocean of dark and forbidding waters. This is why Paul begins his list with death: “Neither death nor life, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”

Paul knows that death is real – and it feels so final – but the Good News is that Easter is real too. The One who loves us has entered death itself and come out the other side, which means there is now nowhere left we can go where Christ has not already gone before us. That is Christian assurance. Not confidence in ourselves. Confidence in Christ.

Perhaps faith is like learning to put our faces beneath the water. At first, we might think the Christian life is about becoming less afraid, but the point was never that we would become fearless. The point is – every time we move into deeper water – Christ is already beneath the surface, holding us fast.

Amen.

[1] N. T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–15 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 159.

[2] Tommy’s Rock is a small island on Upper Saranac Lake that presents a 15 foot drop into deep water. Jumping off Tommy’s Rock is a right of passage on Upper Saranac Lake, but most any large body of water has some form of jumping rock or ledge much the same.