Jesus Won't Save You

Matthew 9.11-13

When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

“Jesus Won’t Save You.”

That’s the title of a poetic essay from the self-proclaimed Poet-Priest Andy Squyres.

It’s the kind of title that begs for the piece to be read. After all, if there’s a familiar slogan with Christianity it is “Jesus Saves.” (We’ve got a church in Roanoke that had those two words embalmed and lit on a sign for the whole city to see.)

So what does Squyres suppose he is saying when he says, “Jesus won’t save you”?

Inherent in what follows is what we in the church refer to as via negativa. It’s a philosophical principle that focuses on gaining clarity or truth by identifying what something is not, rather than what something is. This is also referred to as Apophatic Theology, as it assumes the human language is too limited and finite to ever comprehend or convey the infinite.

Thus, Squyres attempts to describe how Jesus does save by first confessing that Jesus won’t save us from certain things:

“Jesus won’t save you from being young or growing old. Jesus won’t save you from being mystified. He won’t save you from being perplexed. You may be a follower of Christ, but he will not relieve you from the gift of human experience, from living under the pressure of complexity. Being creatures constrained by the laws of physics is not cause for regret but joy. Walking on water is fine if you can manage it, but the project we’re working on does not include us pining away for ‘supernatural’ abilities in order to avoid life. No, Jesus won’t save you from life, even when you plead with him to give you ‘better’ one.”

Life, as Squyres notes, is inherently complex. And Jesus does not come to remove complexity. Rather, he gives us the means to live complicated lives with other complicated people. Perhaps this is why chief among all the complaints lobbed against Jesus is his irascible insistence on eating and drinking with sinners. There is no one outside the realm of God’s grace in the person of Jesus Christ through the power of the Spirit. Thus, to be blessed by God is to be blessed by the presence of other people.

And then, having listed what Jesus will not save us from, Squyres continues by approaching what Jesus will save us from:

“Jesus will save you, though, from a life of never wondering, or never being amazed. He will save you from the misery of never being ‘hard pressed on every side.’ He will save you from getting everything you want when you want it. He will save you from cliches and a vain imagination. He will save you from optimism and will instead cast you onto his real hope.”

Without the salvific work of Jesus life would just be one boring thing after another. But because Jesus saves we have been freed from the burden of having to be the hero in the story - we can, instead, simply be. We can rejoice in confusion and wonder and amazement because life is (supposed to be) surprising! Moreover we can rest in the hope that is Jesus because he can and will do more than we ever can.

And this is how Squyres ends his poetic essay:

“Christ’s hope is why we don’t have to fear what he will not save us from. It is the bedrock and framework of our obedience to the command ‘Be ye not afraid.’ It is our song of praise, even under the threat of a hypersonic missile which travels five times faster than the speed of sound. Jesus won’t save you from living in a world that needs your prayers. We must pray. We must sing. We must believe. We must be conformed into his image. Christ himself is our ultimate reality, and nothing reveals the wonder of that more than the thrill of being dependent and alive in time and space, between Heaven and Earth.”

Until God makes a new heaven and a new earth, we will live in a world that needs our prayers. We will live in this world that needs people like us who live and lead such weird and wonderful lives so that the world can know there is an alternative to the world.