Trusting in the Power of Jesus’ Saving Love
By the Rev. Malia Crawford
The other day I saw a car whose bumper sticker said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” I wonder what that bumper sticker meant to the car owner, and what they hoped it would accomplish.
I confess that I started making all kinds of judgments about their theology and whether they would be hostile or judgmental if they met me face to face.
Their bumper sticker reminded me of a woman I met on my first day at college. She immediately wanted to know if I had accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I was confused, because that wasn’t language that I heard in my church growing up. I replied, “Well, I’m Catholic and my family and I go to mass every week, and in high school, I was involved in two church youth groups.”
“Oh,” she replied. “So, you’re not Christian.”
Because of this experience, I tend to get tense when people focus on salvation. I jumped to the assumption that the car owner stuck that bumper sticker onto their vehicle in order to get as many people as possible to sign a lifetime contract for salvation, as if their own security depended on how many signed contracts they could obtain.
It turns out, this bumper sticker quotes Acts 16:31, which is part of an amazing story. Paul met an enslaved girl who had a spirit of divination, which made a lot of money for her enslavers. Paul ordered the spirit out of her, which enraged her enslavers. They dragged Paul before the authorities, who imprisoned him and Silas. But God used an earthquake to break the prison doors and the chains of Paul and the other prisoners. Assuming they had escaped, the jailer contemplated suicide. But Paul stopped him, assuring him that no one had fled. With that, the jailor asked,
“ ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ 31 They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:30-31, NRSV)
The story ends with the jailor and his family immediately getting baptized.
Some people might understand this as a success story of Paul helping many people get their ticket punched to go to heaven. For me, the good news in this story is not being saved from a future hell, but from the present hell people find themselves in. The enslaved girl was liberated from having to use her gift to make money for her enslavers. Those in prison were set free. The jailor’s life was saved.
If someone today were to ask me, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” I would reply: I know that Jesus has saved me again and again when I was walking through the shadow of death (Psalm 23). I know that Jesus saved “me from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure” (Psalm 40:2). And because Jesus has saved me so many times when I’ve been in hell on earth, I claim Jesus as my Lord. I trust in the power of Jesus’ saving love. I want to follow him and be there in the lifeboat to care for others when Jesus is saving them from drowning.
Church of Our Saviour, let us not be afraid of our church’s name. Instead, let us join Jesus in the search party, as he seeks to save people, one drowning person at a time.
In Christ’s peace,
Malia