This is the time of year when thousands of people are making predictions about the next year. Investment advisors, futurists, books about the future and innumerable articles will be written about what to expect in 2016. There is something about the future that draws us in. We want to imagine we can know what is going to happen in the next 12 months. We are fascinated about all the possible changes, disruptions and novelties that will fill our minds and attention. But, sadly, except for those who are interested in the fulfillment of prophecies and the end of the world, there are very few Christians, myself included, who meditate on the future glory of believers and the world we will inhabit. Why is that? We love thinking about the immediate future but are reluctant to think about the most glorious future.

Last week we looked at the new life in the Spirit and how, as Eugene Peterson puts it, “Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.”

This week it is not only the spacious, free life available to us now but what it means to have this life in the face of suffering, weakness, brokenness and waiting for the new world to come. It is not mere enthusiasm or happiness but a deep joy that holds on in all the storms that come. The New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote, “When people look forward, when they plan their lives, they say, ‘How can I plan … [to] make me happy?’” “But when people look backward at the things that made them who they are, they usually don’t talk about moments when they were happy. They usually talk about moments of suffering or healing. So we plan for happiness, but we’re formed by suffering.” Like love, suffering exposes our lack of control over our lives.”

But suffering from the Christian perspective is far more than hard times or challenges that come our way. Suffering as described by Paul and Peter is a part of our calling. We share in the sufferings of Christ and it is inevitable because the ruler of this world hates goodness ­- especially goodness in the name of Christ. It is not truly suffering unless it is a result of our being followers of Christ. Otherwise, it is hardship or the natural effects of living in a fallen world. It may be disease or strife or failure in one way or another. That is not what Paul is talking about here. He is saying we are not to be surprised by suffering because we follow Christ. We will look a little later at the effects of a fallen creation but it is important to distinguish between suffering and the natural effects of our living in a fallen creation. Suffering is when we are set upon for identifying with the name of Christ.

Suffering is only suffering when it is not chosen and it is done as a witness to Christ. It is what you could avoid but choose to accept as a follower of Christ.

Oswald Chambers: “To choose to suffer means that there is something wrong; to choose God’s Will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses God’s will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not.”

Suffering comes because the spirit of this world hates goodness. That same spirit does not hate politics or economics or morals or even religion. It hates love itself. It hates selflessness and sacrifice. It hates goodness that will not give up.

My college freshman roommate was Steve Kopp. Before I was a Christian I had a terrible temper and I could not stand being with Christians – especially those whose character and behavior were consistent with their professed beliefs. I did everything I could to make him be a hypocrite but nothing worked. He was one of the most genuine and authentic Christians I have ever met. I’ve never forgotten the power of his witness in a time when I was awful to be around. I made him suffer.

Do you remember the scene from the movie “Gandhi” at the Garrison, when hundreds of Indians lined up and one after another the soldiers knocked them out with their rifle butts? One would fall and the next one would replace him. Eventually, the British soldiers were worn out from hitting them with no resistance. They could not keep it up. That is the kind of persevering goodness in the face of persecution both Peter and Paul are describing.

But Paul goes on to say that these sufferings are not just momentary. They are for the entire present age. He had no illusions about things getting better because he had no illusions about the hatred that evil has for good. It is permanent and it will never go away. It may not affect us in the same way or with the same intensity but we should never be surprised whenever it breaks out ­like in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Iran and Afghanistan. It is not simple intolerance. It is hatred. It is not bad luck. It is suffering and as long as they claim the name Christian they will suffer.

But there is something at the end of the suffering that will so overshadow it that it is not even worth comparing. That’s a remarkable statement that should not lead us to discount what is happening to Christians around the world but should let us know that the future is so unimaginable that even the greatest suffering will seem insignificant compared to the glory that is to be revealed. Note that he says “revealed in us” as if something is going to happen to us that will affect the entire creation. It makes sense because what was lost in us affected the entire creation. The relationship between mankind and the rest of creation is such that when the glory is revealed in us it will also be revealed in creation.

But there is something about the word “revealed” that is important as well. It means something is already present but unseen. It is not waiting to be created. It is real and waiting for us but invisible. Think about sitting in the audience for a play waiting for the curtain to go up. We know there is something behind the curtain that has been there but has been obscured. When it goes up it is revealed. That is what the new creation is like. On both sides of the curtain there is waiting ­what Paul calls eager expectation. We have no idea what it will look like but we know from Paul’s own accounts that it is unimaginable. I like to think of Paul as someone who has been allowed to peek behind the curtain before what is behind has been revealed and seen the unimaginable. In 2 Corinthians 12 he writes: “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows — 4 was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.” It’s not like science fiction. Science fiction takes what we already know and makes it more than we see now. It takes the world as we know it and extends it in imaginative ways. But we don’t know what to do with unimaginable, do we? We don’t know how to think about this new creation if there is no language for it or we have nothing to which to compare it. That is what glory means. There is something behind the curtain that we cannot imagine.

Paul goes on to say that all of creation is aware of what has happened to it as a result of our Fall. It’s as if all of creation is craning it’s neck. It is a picture of creation stretching up its neck, lifting its head, doing its utmost to see, to have a peep at something. The whole creation knows something is up and there is something unimaginable behind the curtain as well. Creation is weary of being broken. Creation is tired of sickness, decay, and death. Isn’t that remarkable? Think about this the next time you are out in the woods walking. Everything around you is looking to see what is going to happen to them when something is revealed in you. Their whole future is tied to yours and they want to know. Isaiah says, the wilderness and the solitary places shall be glad and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. What is creation waiting for? It is waiting to see what we will look like as we were created to be. Our true glory will be revealed and all of creation will be glad.

I’ve not lost my mind. It’s all here. It’s coming and it is far more exciting than what is going to happen to the market in 2016.

So, we wait in hope because we know the glory that will be revealed will be more than we can imagine. There are no words for it ­ which is probably why there is so little about heaven in the Bible. We have faint symbols and hints but all of those are only good for what we can imagine.

But it is not only creation that is groaning but so are we as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. We wait patiently but that is not the same as waiting in the doctor’s office reading a magazine to occupy our time. It is not the same as killing time while we wait for our connection at the airport. It is waiting with an expectation that something worth waiting for is going to happen. I have a friend who has great difficulty expressing himself. He wanders off from his main thought and cannot keep from going down rabbit trails. However, I have learned that if I wait and listen and sometimes nudge him back on track there is something truly valuable at the end of it. I am not merely tolerant or passive. I am patient because I know something good is coming. I have had the same experience with young people and waiting for them to mature. I know it will take time and that it cannot be hurried and so I wait expectantly for them to grow up. I know it will be worth the wait. I know it takes time and there is no way to shorten it.

And then we come to the final mention of groaning in this passage. There is the groaning of creation as it awaits what will be revealed. There is the groaning of the believer who waits eagerly for redemption and the glory that is to come. And now, there is the groaning of the Holy Spirit interceding for us in our weakness. What does Paul mean by “we do not know what we ought to pray”? Given the context of the passage being our anticipation along with all of creation for the glory that will be revealed in us, I don’t think Paul is talking about whether we should pray for sunny skies for our picnic or parking places. I do think his mind is more on his desire to go completely behind the curtain once and for all and leave the waiting audience. He has had a glance at what is waiting for us and he is anxious to get going. It’s not a death wish. It is a life wish. Here is what he says in Philippians 1:21: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in this body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet, what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.” It is not being tired of life that makes Paul anxious to depart. It is having seen what real life is and knowing what awaits him that makes him torn between staying and leaving. That is why it is only the Holy Spirit who can resolve that conflict for him. I doubt many of us share it, frankly. For most of us, it is this side of the curtain that is most real and to leave is frightening and full of loss. Not for Paul.

In the final book of the Narnia Chronicles, “The Last Battle”, the children and their family actually die. At first, the only possible response is great sadness and wishing it were not so but this is how the book closes.

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are–as you used to call it in the Shadowlands–dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

I think that is how Paul would like us to think as well. All of this life so far has been only the cover and the title page and behind the curtain is Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read and every chapter is better than the one before.