Lenten Perspective: The End of the Story

I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.

The End of the Story

Scripture:

Because 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.

Romans 10:9 (NRSV)

Christ is risen from the dead
Trampling over death by death
Come awake! Come awake!
Come and rise up from the grave!

Christ is risen from the dead
We are one with Him again
Come awake! Come awake!
Come and rise up from the grave!

From "Christ is Risen" by Matt Maher

Two of the earliest Christian missionaries, St. Paul and St. Silas, found themselves in a great deal of trouble when they traveled to the ancient Roman city of Philippi. After being harassed repeatedly by a demon-possessed slave girl, Paul commands the unclean spirit to leave her. Regardless of the peace of mind this brings to the girl, her owners are angered because they have been exploiting the girl's possession for monetary gain. The slave's owners take the missionaries before the Roman authorities who order them to be stripped, beaten, and placed into the most secure part of the prison.

Through the night, Paul and Silas, whose feet are in stocks, pray, sing praises to God, and offer their message to the other prisoners. Around midnight, there is an earthquake that loosens all prisoners' chains and opens all prison cells. Seeing that all of the prisoners have been freed, the jailer, knowing that he has failed in his duties, decides to commit suicide. Paul stops him, saying, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here."

The shaking jailer falls down before Paul and Silas. He takes them aside and asks them, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

Paul replies, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."¹

It is the jailer's question and Paul's answer to this question that I want to explore. First, I want to pose a question about the jailer's inquiry: From what did this man want to be saved?

Typically, when a Christian claims to be "saved" or says that a person needs to be "saved," he or she referring to salvation from hell, which most people understand to be a place of never-ending torment a person faces after death. This Christian thus interprets Paul's instruction to "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ" in order to be saved to mean that if a person places his or her faith in Jesus Christ then he or she does not have to face the punishment of hell after death. This understanding of Salvation is something that primarily concerns the afterlife.

I do not believe that the jailer in Philippi was at all concerned about what happened to him after he died. Remember that, just minutes before he asked Paul and Silas what he needed to do to be saved, he fully intended to kill himself. He believed that death itself was preferable to whatever awaited him if all the prisoners escaped on his watch. To him, whatever he faced in the afterlife was a sweet relief from whatever he was to face in life.

The jailer did indeed want to be saved from hell, but, to the jailer, his hell was his own life. The jailer was not afraid of going to hell when he died, for the jailer was already in hell while he was still alive.

Now compare the vantage point of the jailer to the vantage point of Paul and Silas. Paul and Silas had been beaten and imprisoned, but through the night they still prayed and sang praises to God. They were bound, bruised, and bleeding, but they were full of joy, hope, and faith. They had every reason to despair, but their faith remained strong. Their legs were in stocks, but they were free, and nothing - not even the might and cruelty of the Roman Empire - could take their freedom away from them. They were so assured of this freedom that they saw no need to flee when the earthquake loosened their chains.

On the surface, it would seem as though the jailer was the free man while Paul and Silas were the prisoners. In truth, Paul and Silas were free while their jailer was the one who was in chains. I believe that the jailer witnessed the freedom that Paul and Silas had in spite of their circumstances and wanted the same freedom for himself. I believe that he desperately wanted to be saved from his own "chains."

When the jailer asked what he must do to be saved, Paul replied, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." In the Letter to the Romans, Paul restates this instruction: "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." This is not just some theological statement that a person must intellectually affirm in order to avoid an undesirable fate after death. Wholehearted belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ has saving power in and of itself.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world with a subversive message of love, peace, hope, and grace. He demonstrated this message in the way He lived by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and befriending those shunned and shamed by the pious. In His message and in His kindness, Jesus broke the chains that bound the hearts of the people: He broke the stranglehold that the legalism of the religious elite, the oppression of the Roman Empire, and the stigma of sin had on the people.

Angered that Jesus threatened their place in society, the religious leaders took Him before the Roman governor and had Him sentenced to death by crucifixion. With the crucifixion, those who oppressed people with religion and those who oppressed people with military force triumphed over Jesus. In the crucifixion, legalistic religion, violence, oppression, and death won the victory over the peace, grace, and love of Jesus Christ.

The cross was not the end of the story for Jesus Christ: a couple of days later, He was raised from the dead back to life. When Christ rose from the grave, the victory over Him was overturned. With the resurrection, Christ proved to the world that things like violence, oppression, hatred, sin, shame, and even death do not have to be the end of the story.

The Gospel is often summarized with the famous Bible verse: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life."² Eternal life is not only life after death, but also life after life. Eternal life is life that cannot be threatened by the circumstances we face in our lives. When we proclaim that Jesus is Lord and affirm that God raised Him from the dead, we do not simply make some theological statement: we proclaim that, just as the cross Christ bore was not the end of His story, the crosses we bear are not the end of our stories either.

The fact that you are now suffering the consequences of mistakes you made in life is not the end of the story.

The fact that you have done something seemingly unforgivable is not the end of the story.

The fact that you have an addiction you simply cannot seem to overcome is not the end of the story.

The fact that you are now estranged from people you hold dear is not the end of the story.

The fact that you find yourself an outcast in your own community is not the end of the story.

The fact that you have hurt people in the past is not the end of the story.

The fact that you are oppressed, persecuted, and beaten down daily by society is not the end of the story.

The fact that the world around you is seriously messed up is not the end of the story.

The fact that you are dying is not the end of the story.

Paul and Silas had found eternal life in Jesus Christ, so they knew that the fact that they were persecuted and imprisoned was not the end of the story. They were able to pray and praise God in spite of their dire circumstances. The jailer in Philippi saw the freedom that eternal life had brought to Paul and Silas, and he wanted this same freedom for himself. He wanted salvation from the chains that bound his soul. By offering the jailer the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, Paul and Silas offered him the same salvation, the same eternal life, and the same freedom that they had.

Christ offered this Salvation and life to the people He encountered in His earthly ministry. He once encountered a "wee little man" named Zacchaeus, who was hated by his community because of his occupation as a tax collector. By insisting on eating with him and staying at his house, Jesus offered him the saving knowledge that that his status as a pariah and his past mistakes were not the end of his story.³

Christ once encountered a woman who had been caught in an adulterous affair. After convincing the mob who wanted to execute her to put down their stones, He said to her, "Go, and sin no more." In this command, Christ offered her, not only the invitation to change her ways, but also the blessing to move on with her life without the stigma of being an adulteress. He offered her the saving knowledge that her mistake was not the end of her story.⁴

Christ offers us the same Salvation, the same freedom, and the same eternal life if we will only accept it. The cross reminds us that "the wages of sin is death," but the empty grave reminds us that "the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."⁵ Our mistakes and our circumstances do not have to be the end of our stories, for Christ offers us life beyond these things, life that cannot be destroyed.


Notes:
1 - Acts 16:16-40 (NRSV quoted)
2 - John 3:16 (NRSV)
3 - Luke 19:1-10
4 - John 9:1-11 (KJV quoted)
5 - Phrases from Romans 6:23 (NRSV)

The image featured in this perspective is of unknown origin but is assumed to be public domain.


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