Saturday 22 September 2012

Background

Salvation is a word that is thrown around fairly loosely thesedays. Chris Moyles is the saviour of Radio One, Robin van Persiemight be the saviour of Manchester United, Jessica Ennis was thesaviour of British Olympic hopes, and so on! The Salvation Army(SA) have done remarkable work in the UK for nearly 150 years, butthe popularity and common usage of the name has perhaps stoppedsome people thinking about what true salvation is. Not because theSA do not save, quite the opposite, they do amazing work, savingpeople on a daily basis. But rather because they have done such agood job, that salvation has become a household word, instead ofsomething that people think about, and realise that it iscompletely life-changing!

In this passage, Isaiah is voicing God's appeal to theIsraelites to get alongside God once again, and offers salvation inreturn. This salvation is "everlasting" (v. 17) and it means that"shame" and 'disgrace' will be things of the past! Isaiah statesthat God did not hide, or make God's own truth cryptic or complex,but made it plain for all to see. As such, salvation has been madeachievable and accessible! I once heard of a church conversationabout times of the morning service. The congregation hoped to makethe service later in the morning, but some were said to say that'getting to church should be difficult', as a test of endurance andsticking power. I don't believe that God works like this, and forme this passage reinforces my feelings.

However, God wants our salvation to be complete and lifechanging so that the past can be left behind. It's a difficultthing to verbalise, but in Tolstoy's novel 'Anna Karenina', afterAnna leaves her husband, Karenin is entreated by another to believefully in God, and he gives the appearance of doing so, because thismakes his life easier, and everyone assumes that he is now ok,rather than having to answer difficult questions. Whether this is aregular occurrence is debatable, but the notion is simple -salvation is either complete, or is actually worth significantlyless. We are given the opportunity for complete salvation; "turn tome and be saved", and this chance is as huge as it sounds. WhatKarenin doesn't know is that the relief that he gets from living alie could be hugely multiplied if he found true salvation. This isa reminder to all of us, that our salvation is complete andunending, so we should live remembering that this is the case.Thanks be to God for saving each and every one of us.

To Ponder

• In what ways have you been saved by God?

• How is this different from, or the same as worldlysalvation?