Monday, June 25, 2012
O Lord God
of hosts,
who is as mighty as you, O Lord?
Your faithfulness surrounds you.
9 You rule
the raging of the sea;
when its waves rise, you still them.
Psalm 89
Yesterday
the gospel told the story of Jesus stilling the waters as the disciples were
tossed and turned in the sea. Today the psalm refers to God who “rules the
raging sea” and stills the waves when they rise. As I write, I watch the force
of tropical storm Debby roar through our neighborhood with fury one moment and
then just as quickly the winds stop and the rain subsides. I can see the bands
of rain on the horizon and in minutes we will be plummeted by them. Nature is
such a wonderful metaphor for life in the kingdom of God.
In
this week’s Christian Century magazine,
editor John Buchanan’s introductory comments are entitled “Grace before
anything” and in them he discusses the controversial topic of universal
salvation. Several of the articles in this issue look at universal salvation,
critiquing books on it and presenting the varied positions on it which exist in
the institutional church. However, Buchanan spends most of his comments
discussing his personal experience of the topic.
“As
soon as I was old enough to think about it, I was uncomfortable with the idea
that accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is an automatic ticket to heaven,
and with the reverse idea – that failing to confess belief in Christ results in
an eternity in hell, even in the case of unbaptized infants and all the people
who have never heard of Jesus.”
Buchanan goes on to say
that this issue troubled him for a long time until he bumped into
“the
notion of prevenient grace, grace that comes before anything else, in spite of
anything we have done or not done.” He continues “I understood then that
whatever relationship existed with God had a lot more to do with God than with
me. My whole idea of Christianity turned from a method of guaranteeing
salvation to the acknowledgement and proclamation of astonishingly good news. My
response is gratitude.”
The storms of life are
inevitable; they will come and go regardless of what we do or how we live our
lives. They come in waves…death, despair, heartbreak, catastrophe. Those who have
“accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior” will not be freed from them
anymore than anyone else. But the secret we know as Christians is that the
battle has already been won for all of us, the strife is over! Jesus will still
the waters, God will quiet the sea…prevenient grace reminds us of that truth.
As the power of nature
roars outside this morning, I am assured that the still small voice which quiets
my soul, will also quiet the winds…the winds of discord and dismay, the winds
of hatred and abuse…and my only response, like John Buchanan’s, must be
gratitude. My call to evangelism is not to keep the secret to myself…as that
beautiful hymn says:
Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord!
Unnumbered blessings give my spirit voice;
tender to me the promise of his word;
in God my Savior shall my heart rejoice.
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