Sadness and emptiness…

confusion and disbelief…

guilt and regret…

maybe thankfulness and relief…

even frustration and anger––

those are the sort of mixed, even conflicting emotions that most of us experience…

when someone whom we have loved…

and someone about whom we care…

has died.

At the heart of the profound experience of grief is a sense of loss.

Someone whom we have loved…

who has been a significant part of our lives…

is gone:

no longer will we hear their voice;

no longer will we feel their touch;

no longer will we share thoughts, feelings or experiences.

So many of the emotions that we experience with grief stem from that sense of loss.

Grief is, at heart, an experience of separation.

Sure, grief involves something of an experience of disillusionment…

and of world-deconstruction…

because the taken-for-grantedness of our world…

and the illusion of our immortality––

especially when we are young––

is profoundly shattered.

But, for most of us, it’s the sense of loss…

the sense of separation…

the sense of aloneness…

and, even, the sense of abandonment––

which is seldom named or even identified––

that fundamentally characterises our experience of grief.

Separated physically from the one whom we have lost…

so often we’re separated emotionally from everyone else…

who, we imagine, cannot comprehend exactly what we are going through.

Bereaved, alone, abandoned…

we isolate ourselves from others…

and yet, we yearn for understanding and compassion.

We want to be alone…

and yet, we do not want to feel alone.

And, so it is, that this morning’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans…

remains a popular one for funeral services.

In the midst of our grief and suffering…

in our sense of loss, separation, aloneness, and abandonment…

we want to know that we are not alone;

we want to know…

not only that God’s love continues to support the one whom we have lost…

but that it continues to support us, in our grief;

we want to know that…

“neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come…will be able to separate us from the love of God”.

This reading––

perhaps more than any other piece of Scripture––

seems tailor-made for a funeral.

This reading–– 

perhaps more than any other––

offers us comfort and hope when we suffer and feel hopeless.

In affirming the constancy of God’s love… 

we are reassured that–– 

no matter what happens to us… 

no matter what befalls us… 

no matter how hard or how terrible things might be––

we are not alone. 

God is with us. 

God loves us. 

 

Of course, that wasn’t what Paul had in mind when he wrote this to the church at Rome.

He wasn’t trying to comfort the bereaved––

at least, not in the sense in which we think of that.

On one level, he was trying to offer comfort…

in particular, to those in the church at Rome who had suffered…

or were suffering…

because of their faith.

He was trying to reassure them that their experiences of conflict…

oppression…

even persecution…

did not have, and would not have, the last word.

No matter what they might experience…

no matter what anyone––

even the powers-that-be––

might do to them…

nothing could separate them from God’s love.

But there’s more to it than that. 

Here, in this letter… 

Paul was fundamentally addressing problems within the church at Rome.

In particular, he was seeking to deal with a conflict between those who thought––

or who were being told––

that they had to be circumcised and follow the Hebrew Law…

in order to belong fully to the “people of God”…

and truly be recipients of God’s mercy and love;

and those who believed that they didn’t have to…

because of the faithfulness of Christ…

in which they all shared or participated.

Here, then, Paul subtly argues that God’s love is for them all. 

God loves them––

God loves us––

with a depth and intensity that we can scarcely imagine. 

God loves us with a depth and intensity that nothing can shake or break.

No threats that we face in this life can separate us from God’s love.

No threats of a cosmic nature can separate us from God’s love.

Nothing can.

 

And yet, what Paul says here has a reach far beyond what he imagined…

or even intended.

The principle that he elucidates extends to situations that he could never have expected.

With this claim, Paul completely destroys the notion––

much beloved of strident fundamentalist preachers––

that misfortune is a sign of God’s disfavour;

that tragedies are meted out as God’s punishment;

that natural disasters are a result of God turning God’s back on us.

God is not some stern, moral policeman––

always wagging an accusatory finger at us.

Nor is God a harsh, capricious, and unmoving judge…

constantly condemning our sinfulness.

Indeed, in keeping, perhaps, with this all-too-frequent and pervasive legal imagery…

Paul imagines a cosmic court of law…

and asks, rhetorically, who possibly might bring charges against us…

who might pass judgment on us…

when God––

far from being policeman, prosecutor, or even judge––

is pleading our case for us.

The God who loves us will not accuse us.

The God who loves us will not condemn us.

No, Paul says, God is for us.

God is committed to us.

God is invested in us.

God loves us––

and nothing can separate us from God’s love.

 

And yet, remarkably, Paul goes even further than that.

When he reels off his litany of the things that cannot separate us from the love of God––

beyond all of the sufferings that we experience in our mortal lives…

beyond, even, any cosmic forces or forces outside of our control––

the last obstacle…

the pinnacle of what we might imagine could separate us from God’s love…

is “anything else in all creation”.

In attempting to rule out every conceivable obstacle…

Paul claims, here, that there is nothing in the whole of creation––

that there is no created or creaturely thing––

which can separate us from God’s love.

And if no created or creaturely thing can separate us from God’s love…

then…

in the end…

that applies to us…

ourselves.

Even we cannot separate ourselves from God’s love.

No matter how sharply or frequently we turn our backs on God…

no matter what we do or say…

nothing can separate us from God’s love;

nothing can thwart God’s love for us––

not even we ourselves can.

On account of God’s infinite, inexhaustible, and impartial love…

God will not stop until the whole creation is redeemed and restored––

including us.

It’s a far cry from the sort of God that we often hear proclaimed…

who happily condemns great swaths of humanity to eternal damnation.

As the theologian, John A. T. Robinson once wrote: 

“In a universe of love there can be no heaven which tolerates a chamber of horrors, no hell which does not at the same time make it hell for God”. 

God “cannot endure that, for that would be the final mockery” of God’s nature.

In the end, God’s love will––

God’s love must––

prevail…

for us… 

and for the whole creation.

Because nothing can separate us from God’s love.