Finding Hope For The Future - 9.3.23 Steve Lyman

Creationtide I - Mountains First Lesson: Joel 1: 8-10, 17-20 Lament like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests mourn, the ministers of the LORD. The fields are devastated, the ground mourns, for the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil fails. The seed shrivels under the clods; the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are ruined because the grain has withered. How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander about because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep are perishing. To you, O LORD, I cry, for fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flames have burned all the trees of the field. Even the wild animals cry to you because the watercourses are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness. Lector: Hear what the Spirit is saying! All: Thanks be to God!   PSALM 18:6-20 Diligam te, Domine.   Second Lesson: Romans 8:18-27 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 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. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, 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. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words. And God, who searches hearts, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.