Groaning and new birth

A reflection for an ecumenical gathering

There are some passages in scripture that feel strangely contemporary.
Romans 8:18-24 is one of them.

18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labour, 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
(New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

Paul writes of creation “groaning in labour pains.”
Not dying pains. Birth pains.

And perhaps we understand those groanings differently now than previous generations did.

We hear the groaning of rivers choked by pollution.
The groaning of forests consumed by fire.
The groaning of communities displaced by war, poverty, and rising seas.
The groaning of peoples whose dignity has been denied by systems built on exploitation and exclusion.

Paul does not describe these wounds as separate from spiritual life.
Creation itself is caught in what he calls “bondage to decay.”
Not because the earth is disposable, but because human greed, violence, and domination wound both people and planet alike.

Too often Christianity has read this passage as though salvation means escape — leaving the earth behind for somewhere else.
But Paul’s vision is much bigger than escape.
It is about liberation.
The renewal of the whole created order.

The hope Paul speaks of is not passive waiting for God to fix everything while we stand by.
The Spirit’s presence draws us into God’s work of healing and liberation now.

To hope in the biblical sense is not to look away from suffering.
It is to face suffering truthfully, while refusing to believe that injustice and destruction will have the final word.

And so, in an ecumenical gathering like this, perhaps our calling is not simply to agree with one another doctrinally, but to learn how to groan together.
To pray together.
To act together.

To listen to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.
To stand alongside communities carrying impossible burdens.
To resist systems that treat creation as commodity and people as expendable.

Because Paul reminds us that redemption is never merely personal.

I love this quote from N.T. Wright:

“What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are - strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself - accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honoured in the world - all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.” (N.T. Wright)

God’s dream is communal, ecological, cosmic. The Spirit is drawing the whole creation toward freedom. And maybe the church is most faithful not when it stands apart from the world’s pain, but when it enters it with compassion, courage, and hope.

Hope that plants trees.
Hope that protects dignity.
Hope that tells the truth about injustice.
Hope that builds communities of mercy and solidarity.

For creation is still groaning.
But the groaning is not empty.

It is the sound of a world longing to be born anew.