What shall separate us from the love of Christ? A Meditation on Romans 8, for New Year's Eve

The eighth chapter of Romans is a wonderful consolation to troubled minds, and especially appropriate for Christian meditation at the beginning of a new year.  While the Christian calendar rolled into the new year at the beginning of Advent (right after Thanksgiving, if you missed it,) the rest of the world is late to the game in welcoming 2015, so we will gather together and celebrate with them.  Regardless of when we mark the turning of the year, it is a time of reflection, contemplation, planning, and celebration.

Why celebrate?  We give thanks to God for carrying us through another year, with all its dangers, toils, and snares.  In 2014 we survived a convulsing economy, rising terrorism, a degenerating social fabric, and riots in the streets.  To be sure, many did not survive the dangers of the previous year, and are no longer with us.  But we are here, by the grace of God, and mark another year behind us, with another opening up before us.  Even as we celebrate with those who have made it to this precipice, we remember those who have not… and we must make our plans for the coming year without them.  It is a time marked with sadness and hope, joy and fear.

If we are honest with ourselves, every time of meditation and reflection for the Christian brings forth these emotions.  Regardless of where we mark the turning of the year, time moves on from moment to moment, always flowing inexorably toward its divinely appointed end.  Wherever we stop to consider where we have been, where we are, and where we are going, we must confront the consequences of sin and evil in a broken world.  Our friends and family die, just as we must someday die.  Our friends and family lose employment, as we may lose it someday.  Countries rise and fall, as ours may do someday.  Communities wax kinder and colder, as our own may often do.  We ourselves have had times of triumph and tragedy, marked by providence and judgment.  We see ourselves enmeshed in a world convulsing, created good but tormented by evil.  As Christians we see ourselves in pitched battle, baptized into Christ as a new creation, yet constantly at war against our own flesh with its twisted and corrupted passions.  When we are honest in our contemplation of the year past, we know that we did not deserve to see this day, nor to be among those who look out into the promise of another year.  And likewise, we know that we will not deserve to survive the coming year, any more than those who will not survive it by this time next January.

But the Christian does not linger too long in such melancholy truth.  By the eternal Word written in God’s Holy Law, we remember that no one is righteous, especially not us.  We remember that we are sinners in need of grace—in need of forgiveness, life, and salvation from all the terrors of a world under the sway of the evil one.  We remember that we are not God, but rather we are His good creation, fallen from what He made us to be, and in constant need of His providence and care.  We remember that we have never been able to save ourselves from sin, death, and the power of the devil, nor shall we ever have that power of our own making.  We remember that we are sinners in need of a Savior.

Into this stark reality of the Law that weighs upon our minds at this turning of the year, God sends a light so bright that it cannot be quenched.  Knowing us for who we are, and loving us beyond human comprehension, God sends into our very flesh the Person of His Only Begotten Son, to seek and to save us all.  It is Christ who has come to satisfy the horrors of the Law, suffering and dying in our place, upon that Cross so many years ago.  It is Christ who has paid your debt to divine justice, and broken the chains shackling you to hell’s gaping maw.  It is Christ who has overthrown the devil, lifting his tyrannical boot from off your neck.  It is Christ who has shown you the full measure of God’s love for you, as He sacrificed Himself to save you, taking your death and giving you His life.  It is Christ who has taught you the ways of righteousness for His Name’s sake, and guided you in the paths of divine Wisdom by His Holy Word.  It is Christ who has picked you up when you have fallen down, and carried you to this precipice of the new year.  It is Christ who has defended you, guarded you, preserved you, and given you faith to believe in Him.

And if Christ is for you, what does it matter who is against you?  If Christ has pierced the veil of sin and death, snatched you from the fires of hell, and conquered the devil by His omnipotent power, who in all creation shall separate you from His love?  Shall war or plague, riots or lawlessness, earthquake or flood, storm or fire, or even your own weak and beggarly frame divide you from the Creator who has crossed all eternity to save you?  Certainly not!  Jesus who has sought you, bought you, preserved you, and saved you, will never leave you.  His love for you knows no limits, and His compassion knows no boundaries.  He has written the divine decree of your salvation in His Most Precious Blood, and there is nothing in all creation that can wipe out that script.

So let the devil rage.  Let Islamic terrorists do their worst.  Let anarchists set fire to the cities.  Let nations rise and fall.  Let economies tank and tumble.  Let heaven and earth pass away.  But you, O Christian, are held in the loving embrace of your Savior, who carries you through every tumult and every distress.  You are kept safe and secure in the ark of His Holy Church which is His very Body, fed upon His Word and enlivened by His Spirit.  And whether your last struggle against sin and death is tomorrow or a hundred years from now, He shall keep you even in that last storm, for His love for you cannot be severed by anything in all creation.

May your new year, and your every moment, be blessed by the love of Christ Jesus your Savior, kept by His Word unto life everlasting—until we all stand together upon that last precipice, where all sin, evil, and destruction is left behind, and the blessed eternity of God’s love alone opens before us.  Amen.