Romans 9:1-5: a reflection

1I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit 2that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers’ sake, my relatives according to the flesh 4who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises; 5of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen.

Paul opens his heart here with unusual rawness. I have great sorrow, he says, and unceasing anguish in my heart. What causes it? His own people, the Israelites, his kinsmen, who have not received the Messiah. His grief is so deep that he says the almost unthinkable: he could wish himself cut off from Christ, accursed, if it would save them.

Notice the weight of that love. Paul is not indifferent to whether his people come to God; it costs him ongoing anguish, a sorrow that does not let up. He would trade his own place with Christ for their salvation. This is what it looks like to genuinely care that others are reconciled to God, not a mild wish, but a burden carried in the heart.

It is worth asking whether we carry anything like it. It is easy to be at peace about the people we love who are far from God, to let their spiritual state become just a fact we have accepted. Paul could not. His love for his people ached. If there are those close to you who do not know God, Paul's grief is an invitation to let yourself care that deeply, to carry them in unceasing prayer and longing, and to bring that anguish to God, who loves them more than you do.

Lord, give me Paul's aching love for those who do not know you, especially my own. Keep me from being at peace about their lostness. Let me carry them in prayer and longing, and trust them to you, who love them more than I do.