Jesus saves....

i was reading Fredrick Buechner this morning for my own private church service since i skipped the regular one today and i kind of got my face ripped off...so i wanted to share an excerpt:

....and he see's written out in large clumsy letters as they were falling apart or melting, the message "jesus saves"---just that. JESUS SAVES---with all the other signs going on with whatever they are saying too. And if that man is like most people i know, including myself much of the time and many ways he will wince at the message; that is really a very strange and interesting thing, both the message and the wincing.

God only knows what kind of person must have crawled up there with his bucket and brush to slap the words on: a man or woman, young or old, drunk or sober, by daylight or by dark. And God only knows what reason he may have had for doing it, just that way, just there. But in our strange times, amoung people more or less like us, the effect at least of the words is clear enough: Jesus Saves. The effect more or less is that we wince. One way or another, i believe we wince because we are embarrassed, and embarrassed for all kinds of reasons.

Embarrassed because the words remind us of old-time religion and the sawdust trail and pulpit pounding, corn belt parsons, evangelism in the sense of emotionalism and fundamentalism. we wince because there is something in the name of jesus that embarasses us when it stands naked and alone like that, just "jesus" with no title to soften the blow. it seems that the words "christ saves" would not bother us half so much because they have a kind of objective, theological ring to them, whereas "Jesus saves" seems cringingly painfully personal--somebody name jesus, of all names, saving somebody named whatever your name happens to be. it is something very personal written up in a place that is very public, like the names of lovers carved into the back of a park bench or an outhouse wall...

and maybe, at a deeper level still, "jesus saves" is embarrassing because if you can hear it through all your wincing, if any partat all of what it is trying to mean gets through, what it says to everbody who passes by, and most importantly and unforgivably what it says to you, is that you need to be saved. Rich man, poor man; young man, old man; religious, unreligous--the word is in its way an offense to all of them, all of us, because what it says in effect to all of us is, " you have no peace inside your skin. you are not happy, not whole." That is an unpardonable thing to say to a man whether it is true or false, but especially if it is true,because there he is, trying so hard to be happy, all of us are, to find some kind of inner peace and all in all maybe not making too bad a job of it considering the odds, so that what could be worse psychologically, humanly, that to say to him what amounts to "you will never make it. you have not and will not, a least without help?

and what could be more presumptuous, more absurd, more pathetic, than for some poor fool with a cut rate brush and a bucket of white paint to claim that the one to give that help is Jesus?...because of course, Behind the poor fool with his bucket there always stands of course the Prince of Fools himself, blessed be he, in his own way more presumptuous, more absurd and pathetic than anyone has managed to be since.

Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons by Fredrick Buechner

i was talking to my mom before i read this and she gave me some good insight on how to answer the question of my anger and why i am angry. She said you need to ask yourself what it is that you are demanding and will discover why it is you are angry...this is good stuff. Almost immediately, i said i am demanding perfection of myself and everyone around me and it is making me miserable and probably everyone else too. so i feel like a failure which makes me angry and i feel terribly disappointed to sometimes the point of devastation when i hurt someone or when someone i trust hurts me. i am that person in need of saving...i mean i know this...but i am trying so hard, striving to make a good life one that honors and cares for others and but i just need that kick in my ass, that reminder that jesus saves sarah, that i will fail every time with out Him. I am not stuart smalley, i will never be good enough, smart enough and liked enough...and somehow i think i can be okay with that when i rest in Jesus arms, the arms that save me. i am offended and affronted that i can not do it on my own, i want to make myself good enough, kind enough, gentle and generous enough...but the fact is that i will never be enough and that i will never too much for Jesus to handle.

so i am feeling a bit right today, basically because i am broken and empty, that crakced jar of clay that reminds me that none of this is about me but about Him and what a relief that is...