Separation and the Trees of
Lent
Romans 8:31-39
31What, then, shall we say in response to
this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how
will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is
God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who
died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is
also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or
danger or sword? 36As it is written:
“For your sake we face death
all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be
slaughtered.”
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Some of you know that I started out ministry in the
plains of Nebraska, a little town called Bertrand. Many of the farmsteads in Nebraska were surrounded by a windbreak
made of various kinds of trees. If
you’d ever see the farmstead from the air or see a picture of the farm, you’d
clearly see how the trees separated the house and barn from the fields. Trees served to separate.
Trees also serve to bring together. I think of picnics where we would gather
around a tree in the park or children climbing a tree together or a father and
children building a tree house. Trees can
serve to separate, and they can serve to bring together.
Today is the First Sunday in the church season of
Lent. Lent is a time of preparation, a
time of solemn contemplation of what our Savior has done for us on the tree of
the cross and why He had to come … namely our sins. Today we see two different trees … one that brought separation
and another that brought togetherness.
The first tree we consider is the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil in the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve were given a direct command of God … Don’t eat from that
tree! It’s a command they took seriously
for a while, how long we don’t know.
But then along came temptation and it was all over. They didn’t listen to God’s warning. They disobeyed Him. They thought they knew better. And the world has never been the same
since. Instead of perfection,
imperfection is now our lot in life.
Instead of joy, we know misery.
Instead of health, we know sickness.
Instead of only life, we now know death.
Sin
is separation. It’s separation from
God, which shows itself in separation from others. Separation is painful.
We don’t like to be separated from those we love. Many tears are shed when we part whether
it’s for a few days or at death. Adam
and Eve enjoyed a face-to-face relationship with God. They toyed with God’s clear Word of warning and lost more than
they could have ever imagined.
We talk about the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil
as a tree of separation, but in reality, we all know that it is but a symbol
for the rebellious heart that ignored God’s word and did not value the relationship
God had established with mankind.
The
same is true today. Because we do not
value our relationship with God, we find ourselves separated from Him. We are never going to know the face-to-face
relationship Adam and Eve knew as long as we are on this earth, but because of
sin, we can think of God as distant, not listening to our concerns, as not
caring, or even angry with us.
Because
our relationship with God is not right, our relationship with others can be out
of whack too. We can find ourselves
bitter and angry, not willing to listen or talk to particular people, even
Christian people, sometimes even the members of our own family. Sin is separation. This sinful separation started at the Garden of Eden when Adam
and Eve turned their hearts against God and disobeying His Word, ate the
forbidden fruit.
This
separation led to our other tree … the tree of the cross where this separation
from God was played out in all its ugliness.
There Jesus bore our sin and the punishment for our sins by suffering
the ultimate separation from God. You
remember His words, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? His love even for those who rejected Him
led Jesus to the cross where taking our place, He was abandoned by the
Father. There He suffered the ultimate
separation. He died separated from God,
alone, for us.
But
wait. That tree of the cross is where
God dealt with the separation that was caused at the Garden of Eden. It was there on Calvary that Jesus paved the
way for us to be restored to a relationship with God. It was there that God has provided the forgiveness of sins
through the death of His Son. It was
there that sinners can find peace with God through confessing their sins. It is there that we can know our place as
children of God. It is there that we
receive our commission as God’s ambassadors.
This
tree, the tree of the cross, is the tree on the other side of lent. It’s the tree of togetherness with God that
comes, ironically, by the separateness of Jesus from God. It is the tree by which we are re-united
with God Who loves us so much He will not let us be separate from Him forever
even at the cost of the innocent suffering and death of His own Son. He would suffer separation from the Father
so that we need never know the hopelessness and desperation of being separated
from God.
And now, look at His promise. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing
in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus. Nothing from God’s side. He won’t put up barriers or roadblocks to
keep us from Him. And may we not let
anything keep us from Him either. He
has brought us close to Him through the tree of the cross. Close to Jesus … close to our Father in
heaven … that’s where we want to be.
That’s the best place to be.
Amen.