Skip to main content

Jesus still saves


so my text this week for the fourth sunday in lent is ephesians 2:1-10. it contains the classic formulaic statement about salvation that we are saved by grace through faith to good works. there is, of course, wide and varied interpretation of this theological reasoning of paul's, and i intend to spend some time wrestling with all of that again this week in preparation for sunday's sermon. but i read a great little article here that reminded me that we ought not rationalize our way out of the simple truth of this text, which incidently is the simple truth of the Gospel, after all: Jesus still saves. we don't save ourselves. it seems that as much as we know that, we still don't know it. we still want to create ways where it is at least a co-op with Christ. we want to go to enough worship services, or enough church meetings, or give enough money, or say enough prayers to somehow feel that we deserve the rescue that we get. but as much as we wriggle and wrestle and work, we can never get ourselves where we need to be. the bottom line is always that we are saved by grace. which is at once a theologically thick and profoundly poetic way to say that someone saves us without us deserving it. call that someone God. and call God's son Jesus (which incidently means "he saves").
maybe this doesn't appeal to our postmodern sensitivities. we believe that there is a goodness in us (and there is, of course) that we nurture into serving our communities and our neighbors. we volunteer in soup kitchens or participate in walks for life. we run and fundraise and rock and buy popcorn and do all kinds of good deeds as part of our duty to the universe or to ourselves, but we cannot - we must not - forget that the human experience tells us that we need to be rescued. from what? from death. from fear. from brokenness. from ourselves! and we will never ever deserve it. but we get it anyway. saved by grace.

Comments

Anonymous said…
All I can say is I have to stop reading your blog during work!!!

Popular posts from this blog

bad haircuts (for a laugh)

everybody needs to laugh.  one good way i have found to make that happen is to do a simple google image search for 'bad haircut.'  when you do so, some of the following gems show up.  thankfully, my 9th grade school picture does NOT show up.  otherwise, it would certianly make this list!  please laugh freely and without inhibition.  thank you and have a nice day. 

happiness is dry underwear

we started potty training jack on thursday. we followed a program called POTTY TRAIN IN ONE DAY, which, by the way, i think is kind of crazy. i mean, if someone were to offer you a book called, "ACHIEVE WORLD PEACE IN ONE DAY" i don't think you would take it seriously. and yet here we are, trying to accomplish an equally daunting task in one 24-hour period. it is intense. the day is shrouded in a lie because as soon as your happily diapered child wakes up you tell him that it is a big party. we had balloons and streamers and noisemakers and silly string - all the trappings of a legitimate party. but it is most certainly not a party. it is a hellishly exhausting day. as soon as jack got out of bed, we gave him a present: an anatomically correct doll that wets himself. jack named him quincy. several times quincy successfully peed in the potty and even had an accident or two in his "big boy underwear." he also dropped a deuce that looked and smelled sus

the crucifixion of Robert Lewis

  "the crucifixion of Robert Lewis" mixed media collage with leaves, acrylic paint, and found objects by gregory a milinovich october 2023 this october i was invited to participate in a three day trip which was called a "pilgrimage of pain and hope."  while that may not sound super exciting to many of you, it actually really intrigued me.  i am the kind of person that wants to feel big feelings, and i am drawn to the deep places, so  i was interested in traveling to the scranton area, where the trip was planned, to see what it might look like to be a pilgrim that was wide-eyed and listening to the pain and the hope in the stories of others.   this trip included hearing the stories of immigrants to the northeastern pennsylvania area, and the work in the coal mines that many of them did.  it included hearing from folks who are working for housing justice and equity in downtown scranton.  it included hearing from those indigenous people who first inhabited that land.