Today’s Scripture
Reading (January 5, 2015): Romans 8
Handley
Moule, the Bishop of Durham from 1901 until his death on May 8, 1920, once
wrote about a night that he arrived in Rome with a group of English friends. As
Moule describes it, it was a cloudless January night, and the group gathered in
the middle of the ruins of the Roman Coliseum. The constellation Orion, the great
celestial Giant that stands guard in the sky with his sword drawn and read for
a fight, stood over them as the group remembered the lives that had been lost
in the city during the foundational days of the faith. Among the ones who had
died in Rome during those early days included both the apostle Peter as well as
Paul. Tradition holds that Peter was crucified upside down, while Paul, because
he was a Roman citizen, was able to escape the pain of crucifixion and was executed
by the headman’s sword. But beside these prominent men, countless Christians
were executed right there in the Coliseum. Some were crucified, others were
beaten; still others lost their lives as they were torn apart by wild animals
or dragged to their deaths by having their feet tied to the tails of wild
horses. There were many ways execute a person in the Coliseum, but the end
result was still the same – the people died.
On this
night, in the relative quiet of the ancient place, Moule and his friends
gathered and under the light of the stars they read these words of Paul – affirming
for the friends that nothing can separate us from Christ. As Paul wrote the
words, the situation that he faced must have, at times, seemed overwhelming.
Could even Paul have imagined that one day a cross would stand in the Coliseum,
placed there by Pope Benedict XIV in 1749 as a memorial of the Christians who
had died in the Coliseum and in greater Rome? In fact, Benedict XIV would go
even a step further and make the site a public church, forbidding anything to
be removed from the Coliseum as well as declaring that the site needed to be
cared for – and locked at night. (Unfortunately, in spite of all of this the
looting of the Coliseum has continues even today.) But the current state of the
Coliseum might be proof of the words of Paul – nothing will separate us from the
love of God. What seemed like a great barrier to love, now stands tall as a
testament to love
As Moule
stood in the Coliseum on that January night, hearing the words that had been
written centuries earlier by the Apostle Paul, he must have recognized that his
circumstances were so different from that of the Apostle, yet his need was the
same. Even he needed the assurance that nothing can separate him from the love
of his God.
Over the
past 100 years, our circumstances have changed in ways that neither Paul nor
Handley Moule could have dreamed. And yet, we stand alongside both of these Christian
greats and admit that our need remains the same. We need to be reassured that
there is absolutely nothing that will separate us from the love of our God. That
separation is something that not even we can accomplish.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Romans
9
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