Want to eavesdrop on an unconventional but pleasurable evangelistic conversation I once had?
I was sitting in the living room of an occasionally cantankerous and always humorous man I had come to admire and care for considerably.
Macular degeneration had taken the lion’s share of his sight, leaving the world an irritating blur, devoid of distinction between one thing and the next. Cancer had robbed him of the hope of many more weeks of breathing and spinning yarns with folks with whom he so appreciated yukking it up.
My Matlock Impression
As we chatted, I noticed a verse from the Epistle to the Romans which had been patiently cross-stitched by, I assumed, a hand other than his. Scarlet thread served as lettering on a now-faded square of beige cloth. The 400 year old translation in the King’s English had been caringly framed and mounted on the wall in Hinkle, GA as a proclamation and as, perhaps, an unwitting reminder of the unforgettable revelation that is easily discarded in the flurry of over 2 billion seconds stacked in succession over the course of 70 years.
Like a detective, I spied a clue, and in my best Matlock manner, casually mentioned what was being silently broadcast from my friend’s wall.
“I notice your cross-stitch there on the wall says,
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Sensing the appropriateness of proceeding, I added, “You believe that?”
Fanger-Waggin’ Preachers
Now, you should know, this was my casual query to a man who, after we had first met and he had discovered I was a “man of the cloth”, did his own investigative work, and inquired with outstretched index finger, wobbling in front of me, “Now, you ain’t one of them fanger-waggin’ preachers are ya?”
So I hadn’t the faintest insight into what response I’d receive to my vocal pondering, which now hung suspended in the space between us.
His reply came instantly.
Suspicious of my ilk, and unconcerned with impressing me, my friend, answered my query with a Mark Twain-esque question of his own:
“Well, I’d have to be a damned fool not to, wouldn’t I?”
And with those words, he answered with an enthusiastic wisdom the way any humble person might when confronted with the hard, good news of the Scripture.
Hard news? Really?
“Don’t you mean religious propaganda?”
No, bear with me for a minute. I mean hard news. Verifiable hope. Trustworthy stuff of substance.
Genius or Apostle?
Walker Percy suggests that Kierkegaard’s most important work is his least considered, an essay entitled “The Difference between a Genius and an Apostle.”
“Kierkegaard says that a genius is a man who arrives at truth like a scientist or a philosopher or a thinker...He can arrive at a truth anywhere, anytime, anyplace, whereas an apostle has heard the news of something that has happened, and he has the authority to tell somebody who hasn’t heard the news what the news is...if the hearer of the news asks the apostle, “On what grounds am I supposed to believe this news?” the apostle simply replies that “I have the authority to tell it to you, and if you don’t believe me it is your fault. If I didn’t have the authority, I wouldn’t be telling you. You better believe it, and if you don’t believe it, it’s on your own head.”
The only compelling way to explain the flourishing of the Christian church for 2000 years against all the nervous attempts to eradicate it (which continue moment by moment) is that its apostles announced a real invasion of heaven on earth which they had been given authority to reveal, namely that death had begun to work backwards in the person of Jesus and scores of people saw him after he’d been apparently abandoned to the grave.
Being grave-Victor requires an attentive response.
Hard to Un-see What You Have Seen
The formerly terrified disciples, having seen him, became emboldened apostles, with one spot to fill. The only requirement to be a fill-in for Judas’ place as one of the twelve was not that you had to be a religious genius and have impressive networking skills. One merely needed to have been with Jesus and able therefore, to become a “witness to the Resurrection.”
A witness. Someone who saw something that they could not now un-see. And that seen Reality, altered their interpretation of everything.
A Mantra for Life
Something was revealed to them. And that’s of course, the only way that any of us finds out anything about God, as Frederick Buechner once said it. “It’s knowledge as grace.”
As believers, we adopt John the Baptizer’s words as a succinct mantra for living. “A man can only receive what has been given him from heaven.”
We believe that God’s inordinate affection compels him to reveal things to us. To hand things over to us. To pull back the curtains to let us see a glimpse of the world to come and open up a bit about how the world was meant to be when he breathed it into existence.
You see, we believe that it is foolish, damnably so (because Jesus and the apostles say so), to fail to listen to the One who was raised by God and declared with power to be the Son of God.
We further believe, as Christians, that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” We are people that depend on the most important things being revealed to us. Knowing depends on revelation. Receiving it depends on humility.
Letting Christ’s Words Steep in Us
Perhaps this new year we ought to imagine ourselves a cup of scalding hot water receiving the revelation of Christ as presented in the Scriptures and permit it to steep in us formatively. Allow his words to alter our imaginations, move our emotions, propel our actions and form our thoughts.
Unless you know anyone who has conquered the fate you most fear, namely having a new address at the local cemetery, as He has, you might ought to consider what he has to say, and encourage your friends to do the same. He might just have the words of eternal life.
My dying friend who summed it up so smartly that day with his surly theological pronouncement in the living room now sees every day how shimmeringly true our Savior is with his newly calibrated eyes that no longer require an ounce of faith.
It’s all sight for him now.
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Eric Youngblood is the Senior Pastor at Rock Creek Fellowship (PCA) on Lookout Mountain. Please feel free to contact him at eric@rockcreekfellowship.org.