The Rev. Dr. Tony Campolo, pastor and author, shared this story a couple of years ago. He said,
I have a friend who's a pastor of a church in Brooklyn, a run down, beat up area of the city. He got a telephone call one day from the local funeral director who said that he had a funeral that nobody wanted to take. None of the ministers in the area wanted anything to do with this funeral. The man had died of AIDS. My friend, Jim, took the funeral. I said, “What was it like?”He said, “When I got there, there were about 30 homosexual men. They never looked up at me. Their heads were down and they stared at the floor the whole time I spoke. After the funeral service was over we got into the waiting automobiles and went out to the cemetery. I stood on one side of the grave with the undertaker and the homosexual men stood on the other side. They were frozen in place like statues. They seemed to be motionless. Not a nerve or sinew moved as I read Scripture and prayed. We lowered the body into the grave and I pronounced the benediction. I turned to leave and then I realized that none of them were moving. I turned back and I asked, ‘Is there anything more I can do?'”One of the men said, “Yes. They always read the 23rd Psalm at these things and you didn't do that. Would you read the 23rd Psalm?”Jim said, “Certainly.” And he did.Another man spoke up and he said, “There is a passage in the 3rd chapter of John which says that the spirit of God goeth where it leadeth and you cannot tell on whom the spirit of God falls. Could you read that passage?” And he did. And then one of the men said, “Would you read to me and to all of us that passage that talks about the love of God, that nothing can separate us from the love of God?”And Jim said, “I turned to these homosexual men and I said quite simply this, ‘Neither height nor depth nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come, neither life nor death, nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'” Jim said nothing was more thrilling than to say to these men, who had been so ostracized and hurt by the church, that God still loved them and that nothing could separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.[1]
Nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God. Our Epistle reading is one of my very favorite passages in the Bible. For the sake of argument and emphasis, Paul starts out with a question: Who will separate us from the love of Christ? This is a rhetorical question. He’s not really expecting us to answer, and “he could have simply said, ‘No one can separate us from the love of Christ’ . . .But by asking he question “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ,’ he forces us to pause and consider the matter. Who, indeed? My persecutors? My unbelieving family members? Satan? We are involved; and therefore we ‘own’ Paul’s ultimate response, ‘No . . . we are more than conquerors.’”[2]
To make sure we get it, that we hear what he’s saying, Paul goes on to list some specific threats—most of which he has experienced; hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword. One pastor added to the list:
Can cancer separate us from the love of God? Liver cancer? Breast cancer? Prostate cancer? Bone cancer? Lung cancer? Can these separate us from the love of God? It is a rhetorical question. You know the answer. Of course not. The word, “no,” echoes through history. Can the bombings of the Twin Towers separate us from God, suicide bombings, human beings wired as bombs? Can these separate us from the love of God? The answer is obvious. No. NO. NO. The answer rings through the corridors of history. Can leukemia? Heart attacks? Car accidents? Starvation? Wars? AIDS? Depression? Suicide? Can any of these evil things separate us from the love of God? Of course not, we all answer to ourselves.[3]
None of these can separate us from Christ’s love. “They may separate us from wealth and health, from family and friends, from comfort and ease. But they can have absolutely no effect upon the unchangeable love of God.”[4]
Paul understands that we feel like we are suffering, and in fact we do suffer. Our trials feel like injury and torture, we sometimes feel like we are being killed all day long, like sheep headed for the slaughterhouse. But this suffering doesn’t change the fact of God’s love for us; in fact these trials provide opportunities for God’s love to be made known. So in all these things we can be more than conquerors through him who loved us. We can live victoriously. We can be conquerors because of Christ, whose love never fails. In fact, we overwhelmingly conquer. We are more than conquerors. That’s the way God works, isn’t it. That’s the way of the cross. What looks to the world like defeat is in fact victory. It’s not about coping, not about surviving, but about overwhelmingly conquering.
“It is not enough to muddle through life merely enduring our adversity. God does not promise to take us out of our afflictions, but He does promise that we will emerge from them victorious. We will be victorious in the sense that we will grow in our faith, hope and love. We will conquer in that we will become more like Christ due to our sufferings. We will conquer in that God’s purposes will be achieved through us and others will see the grace of God at work in our lives.”[5]
Paul continues, saying that “I am persuaded.” Paul himself is absolutely 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. Nothing in experience, nothing in invisible powers, good or evil, nothing in time or space, nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. “Whether we are dead or alive, whether they are things we now face or things we will face in the future, whether they are above us or below us,”[6] nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. God’s love is made known to us only in and through Jesus. In Jesus we have the promise of God’s love; he is the expression of God’s love. He is God’s love. Remember John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.” God’s love for us is made known in Christ, and the cross is the measure of God’s love. To follow Jesus Christ is to be confident in God love; but to reject Jesus and his teachings will ultimately separate us from the love of God. God loves us, always, yes, but when we reject Jesus, we are rejecting God’s love. When we reject Jesus, we separate ourselves from God’s love. But, as Christians, we have the right, even the obligation, to be absolutely confident of God’s love for us, made known to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
I know we sometimes let things get in the way of God’s love for us, or at least we put things between ourselves and God’s love. What is it that gets in the way of God’s love for you? Where do you lose sight of the truth of God’s love for you? We need to be reminded, day after day, that nothing, absolutely nothing in all the world, all of creation, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Finally, It is here that we “learn the wonder and glory of God’s love in Christ. It is unchangeable and infinite; it is constant and sufficient; it is eternal and triumphant. God loves us no matter what is happening to us. His love is as dependable as the North Star—indeed, far more dependable, as dependable as the eternal Sun of Righteousness, the same yesterday, today, and forever!”[7] Alleluia! Amen!
[1] http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/campolo_5001.htm
[2] Moo, Douglas J. The NIV Application Commentary: Romans, Zondervan, 2000, p285.
[3] http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/romans_christsspiritandeternalbonding.htm
[4] Allen, Clifton J. The Gospel According to Paul: A Study of the Letter to the Romans. Convention Press, 1956, p. 98.
[5] http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=2310
[6] Moo, 284.
[7] Allen, 99.
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