The Essence of Salvation

March 29, 1964
Rochester

The Essence of Salvation

When the mind rebels against the notion that a dead man rose from the dead, thereby guaranteeing that we shall all be made alive eternally, is there nevertheless some underlying truth for us in the Easter story? When reason insists that the boon of immortal salvation as a consequence of the death and resurrection of a dying rising savior god is a widespread myth held by many ancient peoples, does it follow that there is no authentic reassurance in the Christian variety of this widespread myth of sacrifice and salvation? Is there a true essence of salvation underlying the layers of festival, myth, and dogma of Easter drama of crucifixion and resurrection?

First, there is scant reason and no justice in the theology that someone else pays the price for our sins. The salvation drama which spotlights the supernatural savior at center stage, who takes upon himself the punishment for our so-called corrupt nature, just won’t do if there is any reality to human responsibility and any truth to fair play. Man makes countless mistakes and chooses vice, rather than virtue in too many instances. But, if this be called sin, then man must bear the punishment – and man must seek to turn things about. The atonement for mankind’s sins is always made by the innocent as well as the guilty. The human condition prescribes that the consequences , error and crime can never be isolated to the sinner; always others are touched immediately or indirectly.

But that we are part of others’ virtue and errors even as they must share the effects of our acts in the human situation, is no warrant for “casting our burden on the Lord,” as the old saying goes.

Second, there is not an iota of substantial evidence to believe that the death of the body is reversible because of the power of a revealed religion, Christian or anything else. There may come a day when the wonders of medical science will develop techniques to revive life when death has occurred. But this has no relationship with the Christian belief that Jesus died, was buried and miraculously returned to life after three days in the tomb. The possibility of suspended animation has no point, because the whole Christian salvation scheme swings on the central hinge that Christ did die, but that death could not hold him. “As in Adam we all die, so in Christ we are all made alive,” said Paul.

Third, most of us cannot testify that the essential truth of Easter is a demonstration that Christianity is the one true religion whose unique revelation is proved by [Jesus’] resurrection from the tomb and later ascension into heaven. The followers of orthodox Christianity have their right to so avow, but most of us disavow such unique presumption – and attempt to to apply reason to this story; by virtue of our knowledge that many religions have proposed different ways of salvation and other paths to the reality we call God, by a reasonable assumption that all religions attempt to ?realize to the truth of faith and that none has demonstrated that it alone is God’s only way.

Our church school has shared Easter thoughts with us about the yearly wonder of the renewed life of earth and the reviving of man’s fairer hopes as he is revived by a warmer sun and encouraged by the rebirth of bud and the promise, annually renewed, that the earth will sustain us. Certainly this feeling of gladness and reassurance that comes with the evidence of Spring is older than the rituals of any religion now celebrated with pomp, circumstance and enthusiasm. Yet although the ancient rhythms of Spring still pulse in our blood and twitch at our muscles, and in spite of our natural gladness in response to the germinations of seeds and the fragrance of blossoms, these sensuous delights cannot carry all the meaning of the essence of salvation.

When our choices are limited to either a partialistic salvation scheme or a return to responding to a nature religion, we are not apprehending the essence of salvation. When exhorted to leaps of faith over the reasonable obstacles, I am reminded of the Dauphin’s response to Joan of Arc’s ardent persuasions in Maxwell Anderson’s play, “Joan of Lorraine,” the Dauphin says, “And if it’s all going to depend on my having faith – that’s a catch, that’s a real catch you know.”

The essence of salvation is deeper than the swing of the seasons and more profound than theological intricacies. I like the words of Professor Philip Phenix (INTELLIGIBLE RELIGION) “Salvation does not consist primarily in the destiny of the soul after death, but in present anticipation of the kind of life over which the fear of death has no dominion.”

When a grown person tells me he has never known the fear of death – death to himself - I may listen politely, but I don’t buy it at all. We have fears of when we shall cease to be. When a close friend of about our years dies, our sleep is restless and troubled not only because of our grief in our friend’s death, but also because the fear of our own death rises out of the shadowy pool of emotion where usually that fear rests subdued.

Think of the legends about Peter, one of the leaders among the twelve when Jesus lived; and the leader of the Jerusalem group after courage was regained after Jesus’ execution. Peter, thought of as the Big Fisherman and The Rock and the great preacher who brought many into the faith with that fervent sermon at the first Pentecost in Jerusalem.

The gospels tell how the Romans and their collaborators were trying to round up any followers of the Prophet from Nazareth who had been seized and was soon to be humiliated and crucified. They found peter who denied knowledge - “I know not the man,” he said. The inquisition left him free, but Luke records some of the most pathetic words of scripture (22/62) “And Peter went out and wept bitterly.” Peter had lost the life over which fear had no dominion; fear ruled his life: perhaps the remorse and guilt of failing the test of courage was a moral agony to be compared with the physical agony of the man who died on a cross.

Nor was Peter alone. All the disciples fled back to the safer countryside of Galilee. They had failed the test of courage in the city of decision.

We will never know the real chain of events, historical and psychological, which prompted their regathering to launch the cause for which their leader died. Years afterward, the church believed they had seen Jesus in the flesh, although Paul indicates in the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians (earlier than the gospels) that the risen Lord was the presence of renewed courage and pointed purpose of shared vision of what Jesus had meant to them.

But they gathered to participate in a life in which the fear of death had no dominion. Death was not avoided; most, perhaps all of them died martyrs’ deaths before the years of middle age. But there is no more hint of fear. the modern poet, W.H. Auden, had a line, “We must love one another or die.” Even as the moral dimension Jesus lived was measured to a standard like that, so the disciples discovered that the authentic measure of their living years was their capacity to give love.

George Santayana, the wide poet philosopher, who never professed to accept the supernaturalism of religion but always sought to express the human truths underlying creed and institution, once said, “[item stapled to page has been lost]

When one considers the life of Jesus, inevitably one remembers or encounters all the old disagreements about who he was and what he was. God, Messiah or man, supernaturally conceived in Mary’s womb by the holy ghost or child of human father and mother created in the great unity of love and need. Those of us who hold the latter view, marvel in his humanity, not worship his deity can lose sight of the essence as well as the supernaturalist whose views we reject.

A wise Universalist minister [Harry Adams Hersey], who was old a generation ago, used to tell a parable to illustrate his impatience with those who argued interminably about the nature of Jesus and in so doing lost the essence:

A group of people were in a valley surrounded by mountains and cliffs. If they stayed in the valley it seemed certain they would perish. Then someone noticed a man standing halfway up on a ledge on one of the cliffs. Soon they realized he was pointing a way out for them which would save them from the destructive influence of the unhealthy valley, would save them from themselves. Instead of following the way out of their difficulty, they began a long and bitter debate about whether the man on the cliff had come down from the top or up from the bottom.

When all the documents have been studied; when the archaeologists elaborate their papers from the findings of fragments and scrolls; when all the controversialists have become weary of their insistent arguments; when all the ecclesiasticalists have justified their lengthy codes and precise practices, the essence of salvation prevails in our emancipated participation in the kind of life over which the fear of death has no dominion.