Separation Anxiety

Year A – Proper 12

Scripture Reference: Romans 8:35 – 39

Have you ever gotten separated from your parents? Maybe in a crowded place, you turned around and suddenly they were gone? And you looked all around, and couldn’t see them anywhere? Getting separated from the people you love can be very scary.

And right now, with a dangerous virus lurking about, we are being told to stay separated from friends and classmates. We are even supposed to stay separated from our grandparents. This is to keep them safe from the virus. Even though we want to be with them and we want to hug them close, we have to keep our distance. We can still talk to them on the phone, or by using a camera on a computer, but it’s not the same as being right there with them.

Today Bible reading is a very timely message for us. It is exactly what we need to hear right now. Being separated from those we love can make us worry. We might begin to wonder, if something might separate us from God. 

In Romans, chapter 5, the Bible lists some scary things that we might think could separate us from God: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tough times, or distress, or persecution, or times of hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?”

That’s a list of some things that people might be afraid of. Maybe they wonder if one of those things might pull us away from God. Can anything pull us away from our Heavenly Parent? Can something bad cause God to stop loving us?

The Bible gives a very definite answer to that question! In Romans, chapter 8, verse 37, the Bible says, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Then, in case that was not a clear enough answer, it goes on to say in verses 38 and 39, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

That’s a complete list. There is nothing on earth or even in the entire universe, that can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ. And that includes any old virus. Or any new virus. Nothing can separate us from God. Not even death.

So even if you are separated for a time from your friends, or your teachers, or your grandparents, God is always close by. God’s love is always wrapped around you. There is nothing in the universe that can separate us from God’s love.

Prayer: Dear Lord, help us trust in you when we are afraid and when we feel lonely. Thank you for always loving us and promising that we can never be separated from your everlasting love.