WE ARE SAVED
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
November 24, 2019
What do we
think we’re talking about, exactly when we speak of “saving” things? Maybe the
most frequent way that we use that word is when we’re on the computer. To
“save” something means to preserve it intact, to freeze it in time, and in its
exact condition. Twenty years ago when I was writing my doctoral thesis in
Boston, computers were a lot less reliable for saving things. I put a lot of
months into producing that document, so I was not content to just push the
“save” button on the machine and trust that it was safe. If a glitch were to
occur I could lose all kinds of research and writing in an instant. I wasn’t
willing to trust that button. And so, in addition to every chapter that I saved
in the machine, I printed out a hard copy, put it in an envelope, and mailed it
to myself back in MN. To that extent, I was distrustful of the claim on that
keyboard that what I entered there would, in fact, be reliably “saved.” And I
heard a few of the horror stories from my peers that proved exactly that
instinct.
But today
all of that concern about saving things really doesn’t matter. As with many
doctoral dissertations, nobody reads mine anymore—including me—and so all of
that precious text that seemed so important for a small window of time now sits
gathering dust on a library shelf at my school. So why and to whom was it so
important that it be “saved?” In the long run, the “why” mattered only to me,
and the “to whom” didn’t much matter at all.
So to return
to the question, what are we speaking of in religion when we speak of “saving”
things? It’s all over the gospel of Luke today: everybody who passes by Jesus
on the cross seems to have a great concern about being saved, the rulers, the
soldiers, and even another victim of execution—they all have the same demand of
Jesus: “Save yourself—and us.” And Jesus offers not a single syllable in
response to all of that taunting, because none of them knows what she/he is
talking about. They all presume that to be saved means to be preserved in the
immediate moment, to be rescued from something new and disruptive and
unsettling to us. But that’s not at all what Jesus spent his life teaching and
doing. It was he who said repeatedly that anyone who wishes to save his/her
life in this world will lose it, and whoever loses life here and now will save
it. To “save” something is not merely to prolong it in its present state. So
many of us have that completely backward, even the most well-intended among
Christian believers can misunderstand.
And speaking
of Boston, one of the great modern folk heroes there is the baseball legend
Ted William of the Red Sox. When he died 17 years ago his body was
cryogenically frozen in a lab so that someday, when science catches up, he can
return to life on earth. He’s being, as we might say, “saved.” How awful.
Jesus
doesn’t engage the conversation about “being saved” as he hangs on the cross.
In fact, the only words he speaks in today’s gospel are to assume the criminal
hanging next to him that, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” What will be
“saved” is not life as we now know it. Nor will we be spared from death. But
what/who will be saved is “you,” meaning we who are faithful. It is we who will
be saved from final destruction, in a realm of existence called paradise, which
we cannot begin to imagine or hope for now.
It is a
promise, not an explanation or description, that comes from the mouth of the
only person on earth who has ever been worthy of that kind of trust, Jesus our
Lord, Christ our King. We are “saved” when we are “with him.” And we already
are.
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