“As soon as the Gospels were written, speech without experience began to dabble with the new facts by the existence of the Church…people tried to think the new life without being touched by it first in some form of call, listening, passion or change of heart.” Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
I must have been ten years old, and it must have been this late summer kind of time. Sitting between mom and dad (no choir in the summer!) in the sweltering balcony of North Park Covenant Church, we listened to pastor Wiberg preach with passion, returning again and again too the phrase, “We still need Jesus!” As if unplanned, the sermon ended with him coming down from the platform and beginning to bang on the piano, and we sang:
“Just as I am without one plea but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidd’st me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!” (Covenant hymnal 331).
It was as close to an “altar call” as I’d ever seen in our church, because we didn’t have those, where we would be asked to get up and come forward and accept Jesus publicly as Savior and Lord. But I was familiar with it, from visiting my friends’ churches, and from those Thursday night camp bonfires. There the speaker would invite us somehow after leading up to it all week, to do something — raise a hand, or stand up, or throw a stick into the fire “if you want to give your life to Jesus, or re-commit your life to him.” Peer pressure ensued, but beyond that I really was touched by the gospel’s good news, even as a child.
Well, I must have just returned from one of those tender camp experiences, when on the way home from church I remember asking my dad why pastor Wiberg didn’t ask people to come forward. Not exactly remembering, my dad responded with something like this: “Well, Peter, it’s a good question, and we respond, we come to Jesus, but that’s not the way we do it.” And I knew at least part of what he meant, evidenced by the tears I often saw flowing in the sanctuary. A deep experience of God’s love and response to the call of Jesus to come to him were readily apparent, absent the more evangelical approach.
I’ve thought about that day now fifty summers ago and that question I asked. It was a good and important one. Still is, especially for those of us who carry on a more nuanced and less confrontational way of asking each other to “get saved”, to “give our hearts to Jesus”, to “find new life in Christ”, to “accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior.” Though we don’t ask for raised hands or stand-ups, nevertheless we ask (I hope!). Because as pastor Wiberg said it, “We still need Jesus!”
In spite of all the guilting and shaming attempts at manipulation the church has a history with, and despite our more Lutheran, sacramentlist ways, we are a revivalist people. Our Pietist forebears would ask each other “So are you alive in Jesus?” And then the next time they saw each other, “Are you STILL alive in Jesus?” Ours is a tradition deeply steeped in conversion experiences and the constant process of repentance, of turning away from our selves and opening up to God’s Spirit. Our history takes shape in “strangely warmed hearts” and tears for joy and testimonies, and that real experience shapes the way we speak, and act, and love, and serve, and pray.
Ours must be a faith of experience first, and over and over again, before it is anything else. The grace of God needs to touch us, and change us, and form us, once, for the first time, and again and again, when we come to this: “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3)
I still need Jesus, and you do too! Everyday, every hour, every minute. And Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Though our tradition these days is a bit more modest and relational and welcoming rather than confrontational (a good thing!), let us never lose the gospel’s call, which is to come to Jesus. If yours is a religious experience that is boring to you, try opening up and really trusting Jesus with your journey. Try giving your life to Christ and set out on an adventure of following him. An adventure it will be!
Are you alive in Jesus? Are you STILL alive in Jesus?
Love From Here
Peter Hawkinson
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