As my mom tells the story, when she and my uncle were little, every day they would drive past a building with a neon sign in the window. The neon sign said in big, bold letters the words, “Jesus Saves.” My mom and uncle, having no idea what those words meant, decided that the building must be a bank.
As in … Jesus saves and so should you.
Or … Jesus saves thousands of dollars on home mortgages when he banks with us.
In one of my favorite novels for children The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963, the main character Kenny becomes convinced that the new kid is going to save him from being bullied. And, because Kenny pays attention in Sunday school, he knows that God has sent him this new kid, that God has sent him his own “personal saver.’
This past Sunday, cnn.com had an article entitled, “Do you speak Christian?” Christians have their own language, the article says, a language that is sometimes misused and often misunderstood.
And I think one of the phrases that is frequently confusing to people is “Jesus saves” or its cousin question “Have you been saved?”
I can’t tell you the number of times I have been asked the question, “Have you been saved?” And if I’m being honest, I have always found that question off-putting. It’s a question that seems designed to put people on the defensive as if they must now prove their worth.
And if the person who’s being asked isn’t Christian, then the question just becomes awkward because suddenly you’re speaking a whole other language and using words in a way people aren’t familiar with.
Because what does it mean to be saved? We know what it means in a literal sense. If I’m drowning and you throw me a life preserver, you have saved me. But what does it mean biblically?
Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
But what does that mean “you will be saved?”
Notice that the object here in Romans (this is where I put on my English teacher hat) is “you.” If you do this, you will be saved.
But how are we saved? What are we saved from? Who has done this saving for us?
What does it mean that Jesus saves?
Well, simply put, it means that Jesus suffered, died and rose again so that our sins might be forgiven, so that we might be saved from an eternity of separation from God.
Okay, maybe it’s not that simple.
In my last post, I wrote about how fantasy and science fiction stories reflect the greater truth of what moves us and makes us tick.
So let me use the novel The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis to help illustrate the concept behind being “saved.”
At the end of The Silver Chair, the great king, Caspian, has died. Aslan, Eustace and Jill gather together at a stream high up in the Mountain of Aslan.
“There, on the golden gravel of the bed of the stream, lay King Caspian, dead, with the water flowing over him like liquid glass. His long white beard swayed in it like water-weed. And all three stood and wept.”
Aslan then instructs Eustace to pluck a thorn from a nearby thicket and bring it to him. The thorn is horribly long, nearly a foot in length and sharp as anything. Aslan then tells Eustace to drive the thorn into his paw which Eustace does.
“And there came out a great drop of blood, redder than all redness that you have ever seen or imagined. And it splashed into the stream over the dead body of the King … And the dead King began to be changed. His white beard turned to grey, and from grey to yellow … and the wrinkles were smoothed, and his eyes opened, and his eyes and lips both laughed, and suddenly he leaped up and stood before them—a very young man, or boy.”
And here comes my most favorite part, “He gave Aslan the strong kisses of a King, and Aslan gave him the wild kisses of a Lion.”
Caspian was dead. He had died of old age. He had lived a good life, served Aslan well and in the end, he died. The end. Except it wasn’t the end.
Aslan saves Caspian. At first this seems to be a resurrection. He’s brought Caspian back to life, but it’s not. Caspian’s human life is complete. He cannot return to Narnia. He is part of Aslan’s country now.
How does Aslan save Caspian? He saves him with his blood. He sacrifices part of himself so that Caspian might escape the bonds of death and share eternal life with Aslan. There is no hocus-pocus here, no spells cast, no enchantments. This is Aslan shedding his blood to break the hold death has on Caspian.
Aslan saves Caspian and it is glorious and wonderful. It is joyful and filled with laughter and those “wild kisses of a Lion.”
Aslan has transformed Caspian through his sacrifice.
And that is what being saved means. Being saved is transformative. For Caspian, it washed away old age, but for us, it washes away every part of us that is earth bound, every part of us that drives a wedge between us and God. It washes away sin.
It is healing.
So that when Jesus saves, he completes in us the most magnificent healing imaginable.
Jesus died on the cross for all of us, every single last one of us. It was a gift given to all.
Romans 10:12 goes on to say, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.”
In the end, I think the reason that words sometimes fail us, why words liked “saved” and phrases like “have you been saved?” fail us, is that words alone cannot capture the scope of what has been done for us.
The words seem trite and awkward because what Jesus did on the cross goes beyond words.
And that is why C.S. Lewis did such a wonderful thing with his Narnia books. He gave us images to go along with those words. The blood of Aslan led directly to the transformation of Caspian. We can hold onto those images and embrace them when everything else seems too difficult to comprehend.
Jesus saves.
Jesus saves us every day.
