Church and Salvation

I noticed over the last couple of days, working in an ecumenical context, that there is nothing like the word "salvation" to perk up ears, to make people scoot to the edge of their chairs. There is mystery attached to this word, there is hope, fear, power struggles over who has the right to define it, declare it, offer it.

There is nothing more intriguing than the word salvation and its many and varied use. The Hebrew word for salvation means literally to "make wide" or to "make sufficient." The Hebrew words used in this regard usually come from a military context and refer to victory over evil or rescue from danger in this life. And in the gospels, salvation is usually associated with physical healing: relief from blindness, paralysis, or leprosy. When Jesus says, "your faith has saved you" the Greek word used here means "made you well."

As Kathleen Norris points out in her book Amazing Grace, in so many instances in both the Hebrew scriptures and the gospels, salvation is described in physical terms, in terms of here and now, because that is how most people experience it first. It is only later that the more spiritual aspects of salvation unfold and begin to make themselves known.

Biblical scholar N.T. Wright suggests that if 'salvation' means simply 'leaving behind the world of space, time and matter' then this is not really 'salvation' from the ultimate enemy, death itself, which destroys God's good creation, but colluding with it. Rather, 'salvation' in the New Testament -- though of course our culture has done its best to distort this -- is all about God rescuing humans and creation from death. 

In other words, salvation is the redemption and renewal of creation, and of human beings within that, into a newly embodied world of which the present world is simply the foretaste.

I think it is hard for us to grapple with this reality. Today we will read and hear Ezekiel grapple with this reality: "mortal, can these dry bones live?" Aside from the dramatic conclusion to the story, I think a key to salvation comes in Ezekiel's answer "O Lord God, only you know." Though we pretend to be masters of so much, in reality, O Lord God, only you know...how many breaths we have left to draw and how salvation will be accomplished.

Can we, in Lent, come to a humble place like Ezekiel where we are content to say "O Lord God, only you know."