What does it mean to be saved?
Our text for today…
invites us to engage a question at the center of the Christ story – what does it mean to be saved?
We may understand this question to be the heartbeat of the gospel, the thing being communicated by God which God went to the ultimate lengths in hopes we might understand it.
If we go back to the beginning, Matthew 1 teaches Jesus will save his people from their sins” – sin being whatever prevents us from being able to care well for ourselves, others and the planet. So what is the thing that keeps us from being able to fulfill our best and what does it mean to be saved from it?
Saved from what?
… saved how?
… saved for what?
This is the questions I’m inviting us into today – how does Jesus’ death save us? And does that salvation then make possible for us?
One of the perks of being a researcher of theology, scripture, and brain science, is I regularly get to have engaging conversations with folks interested in those topics, and in speaking with many of you, it’s become clear that many of us are asking similar questions about salvation and the Christ story, in light of what we’ve learned about the brain, body, nervous system, and how positive change occurs for human beings.
It’s also clear many of us have complex feelings associated with this word saved in this context. So let’s make space for those feelings and our thoughts about what it means.
What feelings for you are associated with the word “saved”?
I first heard this word, saved, in a church where a now wealthy celebrity’s dad was my pastor he baptized me, and there and in many places after I was taught “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." John 3 at the same time, the wages of sin is death Romans 6, which I was told means God’s forgiveness can only be purchased with death… that God cannot forgive sin any other way.
The notion that someone must die was also taught by religious institutions at the time of Jesus—they sold lambs and doves to be slaughtered for God, believing that justice required a sacrifice, that God’s forgiveness had to be purchased with death.
Yet in Matthew 21, when Jesus entered the temple, he drove out the animals setting them free--a reminder as in Isaiah 1 that God does not desire sacrifice, that God is able to forgive sins without anyone else having to die for them.
The notion that someone must suffer was taught also by religious institutions of our time as a spiritual law—that God will either inflict suffering on us, or God’s forgiveness had to be purchased by someone suffering in our place.
Yet in Mark 2 when Jesus said to the paralytic “your sins are forgiven” it was not because someone else’s legs had been broken in his place—it was to demonstrate the opposite—the Son of Man is able to forgive sins without anyone else having to suffer for them.
And so I have held that tension for much of my life, maybe you have too. And I hope to offer us today a helpful way to move toward this question, What does it mean to be saved by Christ? Where might our notions of salvation have gotten turned upside down, and what might God still be hoping today we would come to understand?
So we’re here in Mark 10, and our text begins by saying this:
“How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were startled by these words, but Jesus told them again, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in their wealth to get into the kingdom of God! It’s easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into the kingdom of God.” Mark 10
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to get into the kingdom of God! And the disciples were startled and perplexed But Jesus said it again, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in their wealth to enter the kingdom of God!
Jesus’ words here are a response to a rich young man who asks Jesus, “What must I do to be saved?”
So why would Jesus insert this word about money here in the middle of a teaching that appears to be about spiritual salvation?
“How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were startled by these words, but Jesus told them again, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in their wealth to get into the kingdom of God! It’s easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into the kingdom of God.” Mark 10
Let’s notice that Jesus clarifies, it’s not the having of riches that makes salvation difficult, it’s our attempt to trust in something inherently untrustworthy… so I’ll invite us to wonder together then about the relationship between salvation and trust.
Brain science has taught us a lot about trust and how it functions in our brains, in our bodies…
Here are some things we have learned: when we encounter a trustworthy person —and perceive them accurately—our bodies respond automatically with trust.
You may notice this, if you think of someone you trust and hold their face in mind, your brain releases warm, pleasant neurotransmitters that calm the brainstem, deepen our breath which sends more oxygen to the brain, our belly relaxes, we let down our guard, open up, we are vulnerable, and intimate with someone we trust… our bodies generate all of those benefits automatically, we don’t so much choose them, as we receive them.
Now here’s what’s really interesting…
Those benefits of trust then make possible a whole range of human capabilities.
Embodied trust permits us access the upper pathways in our brain—making it possible for us to direct our attention and make thoughtful choices; whenever we act with wisdom, and compassion, whenever we consume in moderation which is kinder to the planet, when we problem solve creatively, when we are empathetic with and forgiving toward our enemies—it is these upper pathways of our brain we are accessing.
In trust, we find ourselves able to fulfill more of our best intentions—we feel at our best, even under stress, and we begin perhaps to look more like Christ—to reflect more clearly the image of God.
Simply put, we may understand trust may be the neurobiological state–the embodied condition—in which we experience ourselves as saved.
Saved from what?
So saved from what?
Consider that Christ saves us from mistrust–-the embodied condition in which our brain releases stress-inducing neurotransmitters that sound an alarm in our brainstem, often in the absence of any true threat; in mistrust we lose access to the higher parts of our brain and we tend to misperceive people and situations and our stress increases and we experience ourselves to be in torment.
Christ saves us from mistrust.
We may understand mistrust to be the neurobiological state—the embodied condition—in which we sin and do harm to ourselves, one another, and the planet—and from which we need to be saved.
“How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were startled by these words, but Jesus told them again, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in their wealth to get into the kingdom of God! It’s easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into the kingdom of God.” Mark 10
And Jesus says twice, this is hard… it’s hard for us to be saved from mistrust when we are taught to trust in something inherently untrustworthy— security purchased with riches, forgiveness purchased with violence.
And like Jesus’ disciples, we may hear this and feel startled, perplexed.
The disciples were utterly amazed and asked one another, “Then who can be saved?” Mark 10
How is it possible that what the wealthy, the celebrities, the powerful have taught us that salvation requires could be the opposite of what we are now hearing in Jesus’ words? Seeing in Jesus’ actions? And if salvation is not in fact something which needs to be purchased—neither with riches nor with violence—then how?
Saved how?
I would propose that if mistrust is the neurobiological condition under which we sin and from which we need to be saved, then trust is the antidote.
Which places it really outside of our control then--trust isn’t something in our power to choose. We have little to no control over whether or not we experience trust. Embodied trust cannot be forced nor coerced.
Trust is an automatic bodily response
to encountering someone who is trustworthy,
and perceiving them accurately
Rather trust is an automatic bodily response to encountering someone who is trustworthy and perceiving them accurately. As Bessel van der Kolk says, “our bodies keep the score.”
So consider that, if God is trustworthy, and if we perceive God accurately with our brain, our body will respond automatically—with trust and all the warm pleasantness and possibilities that follows.
If the image of God we’re encountering is false and untrustworthy, then we are perceiving God inaccurately with our brain, and our body will respond automatically—with mistrust and rightfully so.
Our bodies don’t lie. They are truth-tellers about how we are perceiving someone.
We are saved by having our trust restored.
And so we might discover ourselves to be saved by having our trust restored as we reflect on the incarnation, the realization that when we look at Jesus we are seeing God.
There is no part of God that is not reflected in Jesus, no part of Jesus that is not a reflection of God…
So a helpful practice for us might be to notice how our bodies respond when we look to Jesus in the Christ story – nonpunitive, nonretaliatory, forgiving freely -- and then look at the notions of God we’ve been taught -- that God’s forgiveness must be purchased through violence, that God’s justice demands someone suffer -- and go back and forth, back and forth between the images, until we come to perceive the difference between the two.
What if Christ came, and lived as he lived and died as he died, not to be punished by God in our place, but to correct our misperception that it was ever God demanding a death to begin with? And perhaps we are the ones who mistakenly perceived violence to be necessary, perhaps it has always been us. And that misperception is the very thing Christ came to save us from.
In mistrust, we tend to misperceive reality. So that even when we’re safe, our bodies can mistakenly perceive the presence of a threat and respond with torment. And this may help us understand the urgency of Jesus’ teaching about the afterlife. If our body—our brain—is to be resurrected as Jesus’ was, scars and all, is it possible that the way we perceive God in this life may play a role in how we perceive God in the next?
“And that is why...the Blessed will say ‘We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ And both will speak truly.” - C.S. Lewis
This may have been what C.S. Lewis was reflecting on when he said, “And that is why the Blessed will say in the end "We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven, and the Lost, "We were always in Hell." And both will have spoken truly.
The disciples were utterly amazed and asked one another, “Then who can be saved?” Mark 10
When the disciples heard Jesus’ teaching about salvation not requiring what they had assumed it required, they were amazed and perplexed and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?”
For so long they had held the notion that forgiveness had to be purchased with something -- and now they were hearing the opposite—God is able to forgive sins without anyone needing to die or suffer or pay the price for them.
And yet Jesus went to the cross anyway, not because God’s forgiveness required it, but to reveal to us what perhaps couldn’t have been revealed any other way – that sacrifice is not divine law as we had imagined, but rather a human invention fueled by mistrust.
And because mistrust takes place within our own brain, it is therefore spiritually and neurobiologically impossible for us to save ourselves from it.
Jesus looked at them intently and said, “For humans it’s impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.” Mark 10
“For humans it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.
Saved for what?
So if we are saved from sin and mistrust, by reflecting on the image of God revealed in Jesus, what does that salvation then make possible?
As we reflect on the Christ story and allow it to update and refresh our perception of God, we are capable then of entering more fully into a trusting relationship with God.
Perhaps the trusting relationship with God the original humans enjoyed as the story of the garden suggests, which enabled them to endure stress and yet still experience themselves to be in paradise.
Is stress inevitable?
Stress is perhaps inevitable for creatures who exist within time. But why was time necessary?
Time is perhaps what made creation possible – it’s the only way to imagine a reflection of God that is also distinguishable from God… time is the necessary divergence between God and us… and it makes sense then that we would experience that as stress.
If stress was “woven into” the fabric of creation from the beginning, was the antidote also woven in?
Possibly. Because trust regulates our stress – in trust we can endure high degrees of stress without experiencing it as torment. Perhaps that is what made it possible for Jesus to live the life He lived, and die the death He died, trusting in God that all his needs would be met. And perhaps God, knowing we would experience stress as a result of existing within time, hardwired us for trust as the antidote or regulator to that unavoidable stress.
So when we take the bread and drink from the cup, we are invited to remember…
…that when God’s body, in Christ was broken, when God’s blood, in Christ was spilled, God did so willingly to restore our trust. God did so as the sacrifice we mistakenly believed was required—in order to demonstrate the lengths God would go to persuade us no…. you were always already forgiven.
Trust in Jesus—God in a body, hanging on a cross… not because God requires a death in order to forgive us, but to persuade us once and for all, you don’t either.
Please pray with me,
Our Savior who art in heaven
holy is your name
your kingdom come
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven;
give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our mistrust,
as we forgive those who mistrust us;
and lead us out of our misperceptions
deliver us from evil;
for yours is the kingdom
the power, and the glory,
now and forever
Amen
Listening with you,
Further reading:
Systematic theology: Cosmology, Christology, Soteriology
The Brain & the Spirit, Chapter 5, A Healing Story, “Saved from What?,” pp. 107–114; “A Transformative Story,” pp. 114–118; “The Story of Salvation,” p. 118.
