Salvation

I've been avoiding writing on this topic. Largely because I have a hard time understanding the way that Christianity generally preaches this message, specifically that being saved can be boiled down to a prayer you say that has specific elements (e.g., I am sinner, I am sorry, I believe Jesus is Your son, I believe he died for my sins and that you rose Him from the dead, please take my life, I want to be yours, etc.)

Actually, looking at this list itself - I don't have any issues with the list. They are all beautiful and essential pieces of salvation, of knowing God and our Savior in their fullest. I think what does bother me is an implicit message that we send when we make the prayer into a static list of things you must say. Specifically, it has always made me feel like we are trying to make God into a genie that responds only to a certain set of commands. Like a scene in Backyardigans Episode my daughter just watched where the genie would not grant your request UNLESS you said "I wish" in front of it. This does two really bad things to the message of salvation.

First, it minimizes God. Specifically, this is the God of the universe we are talking about here! He sees through all of our bull straight into our hearts and from what I can tell what the Bible and this prayer are trying to tell us, is that if we will call to Him in our brokenness and except His message, His plan, His way above our own message, our own plan, our own way - He is faithful to meet us and change us and be with us forever.

Second, it places our salvation into our hands. Let me give you some context to illustrate this point. You know all of the stuff in Christendom where we argue about what exactly is necessary to be saved. Some places you must say the sinners prayer, others say the sinners prayer and be baptized, some you have to say the sinners prayer and walk forward in church, some you have to receive the gift of tounges. You know what the problem is with all of this, it places the responsibility for our salvation in the things that we do or do not do. For example, I was in the car with a Christian friend of mine when I told her I never did the come forward thing at church... "uh, uh" I could see in her eyes - "That's the WRONG way to do salvaton." We can also get caught up in the prayer, authenticating one another's faith, "Well did you say this part? If you didn't say this part then your not in?" Or "Did you really understand this part? If you didn't really understand that part then your definitely not saved." Are we serious?? Is this how we really think the God of universe, Jesus Christ our Savior, intended us to approach salvation - in this endless cycle of doubt? Prodding each other with suspicous questions? I gotta tell you, it is one of THE MOST unattractive qualities of the Christian church today and it is not bringing one soul any closer to Christ.

I think this is why we are told to put on the helmet of salvation in the Bible. Not because we are confident in the way we said the sinners prayer or the way our denomination preaches salvation (all people, all broken) but because we are confident in our Savior's faithfulness. We are assured of His righteousness. Because at the moment of salvation we are not right. If salvation is about getting right or doing it right we are all doomed! The only way to describe us at any moment before God is at the center of our lives is wrong, lost, or broken. Salvation is about the end of denying that and resting securely in the knowledge that our Amazing and Faithful God loves us anyway and is faithful to wash us clean. We are meant to KNOW that he is faithful to save, not that we are faithful to have said the sinners prayer the right way.

I get the sense that the sinners prayer was written as a means to simplify and assure worried souls that they were doing it right. And that is so, so noble. Hush child - you've said all you need to say, you are His now. But without understanding it is Christ alone who saves - it can easily become a lie, another trap the enemy uses to keep us believing in ourselves instead of Christ.

Jackie's Wedding Update

Jackie sent me this picture from her wedding a few weeks back. She entitled it "A Picture of Redemption." To give you some context, the is a picture of the moment when hail fell at Jackie's wedding and is described fully in my blog post entitled "Jackie's Wedding (Part II)". You can actually see the hail (it's the sparkly drops) and the joy - check out our faces.

What a great reminder of God's love! We are such lucky ladies.

The Great Romance

I went on a retreat last weekend with Calvary Chapel Spring Valley's women's ministry. We devoted the weekend to the study of the similarities between God's redemptive plan and the Jewish wedding ceremony. Specifically, if you know anything about the Jewish wedding ceremony (which I really didn't), it brings alive much of what Jesus talked about near the end of his life.

For example, the Gospel of the Apostle John, Chapter 14 begins with some words of comfort Jesus gave to his disciples before heading to the garden at Gethsemane. He said

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God - trust also in me. My Father's house has plenty of room; if it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

By any contemporary Jew this would have been recognizable as the speech a bridegroom gave his betrothed after they'd agreed to marry. It signified that the agreement to marry had been sealed and a time of separation had begun. A separation that began when the bridegroom gave that speech and left to make a place for his new wife at his home and ended with their reunification and beginning of their united life together. It was a time of waiting and longing, of anticipation and romance.

This is one of many times in the Bible (either in the Gospels generally, by Jesus himself, or in the Epistles) that the romance of the Jewish wedding ceremony is used to described our place in the Redemptive plan or on world's time line generally. It places us, His church, in the role of the lovestruck, excited virgin bride anxious for the arrival of her new husband and the beginning of our new life together.

This would be fine, of course, if I didn't hate romance. I mean I really hate romance. OK maybe I don't hate romance in the technical sense - some part of me is remembering an advanced English class where my teacher redefined romance and it didn't mean sappy puppy love - but I really do hate that sappy, sickeningly sweet love of teenagers. Seriously, the only thing I appreciate less than the general self-absorbed melodrama of teenagers is the way they experience first love, so deluded and blind.

I honestly can't help but roll my eyes and gag a little bit when I think about Romeo and Juliet, Titanic, the Notebook, Twilight or any other in a long series of ridiculous stories were two young adults are "meant to be", "soulmates" or "complete each other". Yuck, yuck, yuck. Thus, envisioning that a part of my Christian life is to wait on baited breath for Christ's return, wooed by His advances and cooing over how I'll finally be complete when we are together makes me cringe inside.

Ugh! The vulnerability of it all. I remember loving like that, hoping that he would love me in return. Staring anxiously across the gymnasium floor at Michael Casey Jr. (God was he beautiful), hoping, that of all the other 8th grade girls he would think I was the prettiest. Praying desperately that he would ask me to dance. And he did a few times. And my heart melted.

I remember loving like that. The purity of it.

I also remember when Michael Casey Jr broke up with me and dated my best friend. And when, two years later, he told me he "could never see us as anything more than friends" and my heart breaking open with a sickening disappointment that screamed NEVER again. I will NEVER love like that again. I will NEVER buy into that BS again, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER AGAIN.

Why does God have to heal it all? Isn't it enough that I believe in Him? That I would die for Him? Isn't it enough that I would give my very life to Him? No it's not. He wants it all. I can't even keep this safe, He wants to break it open and heal it.

I gotta tell you, I've never been so reluctant to hand something over to Him. Those moments hurt so, so bad. But I must, mustn't I. That Punk.

My beloved bridegroom,

I give myself to you, broken hearted. It is so hard to love you with all of this history. Take it. Wash me, make me clean again. I trust you.

Amen.