Nothing Can Separate Us

Dear DJAN Friends,

Some of you have lost loved ones over the past two years; and, of course, our nation is mourning the death of so many from COVID-19. So it seems appropriate to lift up a passage from Paul's Letter to the Romans–one of the most eloquent, passionate expressions of comfort in all of scripture (presented here in the New English Bible translation).

What can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or hardship? Can persecution, hunger, nakedness, peril, or the sword? "We are being done to death for thy sake all day long," as scripture says; "we have been treated like sheep for slaughter" [Psalm 44:22]–and yet, in spite of all, overwhelming victory is ours through him who loved us. For I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths–nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35-39).

The longer passage of which this is a part begins with the question, "If God is on our side, who is against us?" And the apostle's answer is clear: because of Jesus we know that God is, indeed, on our side! Over the centuries, Christians have been tempted to assume that ill fortune is an indication that God has abandoned us. No, says Paul, if you think this, you have missed the point. People do get sick and die; people do go to war and kill one another; some people's greed does cause hardship for others. He is writing to Christians in Rome just before the terrible persecution of Jesus' followers at the hands of Emperor Nero, so he is not blind to the reality of human suffering. But sickness, war, suffering, and death do not have the final word because God is on our side! This is the Good News in a nutshell: "Nothing in death or life"–not virus or cancer, not human bigotry and discrimination, not even our seemingly limitless capacity to rebel against God and focus on ourselves–has the power to frustrate God's grace, to separate us from Christ's love. This, of course, cannot be proved. It is a matter of faith, grounded in the testimony of scripture and of countless believers before us.

May God grant us understanding and commitment.