The Great Rescuer
My exposure to the Orthodox Church has been minimal, but I have deeply appreciated that limited experience. I admire their use of ancient liturgies and chants. As an aficionado of natural incense, I’m particularly drawn to the practice of censing. No matter the troubles which accompanied me that day, smelling the purity of the incense and watching the smoke dissipate toward heaven, symbolizing the prayers of the people journeying toward the Divine as the priest swings the censer, always puts me in a proper and solemn mindset. It beckons me to be present, which is often hard to do in this day and age.
As someone who used to place such high importance on Christian apologetics, I now love their embrace and even incorporation of the mystery of it all. I don’t want a God I can understand fully, and I believe the acceptance of this is actually a sign of spiritual growth.
Again, my exposure has been limited, and I hope even this small blurb is respectful and at least close to accurate in expressing the heart behind the Orthodox Church.
I particularly love Orthodox icons. I’ve often found myself strolling up and down the nave after the Divine Liturgy or Vespers, my steps echoing across the mostly empty room, a light cloud of incense still embracing those who remained after. I even keep an icon of Christ forming the IC XC gesture I picked up during a quick stint in Malta on the bookshelf behind me.
If one ever takes the time to notice the icons of Jesus performing a rescue, such as pulling Peter out of the water, the icon of the Resurrection, or Christ’s descent into Hades—any icon depicting Christ pulling an otherwise suffering and lost soul up to a platform of redemption and safety—one might notice what can only be an intentional detail. It is never the hand of those who suffer that is grasping onto Jesus. Christ is always grasping onto them. It is not our hands that cling to Christ; it is the hands of Jesus that cling to us.
What a beautiful sentiment… And I believe everywhere we find a bit of beauty, we find a bit of God.
That’s the default nature of Christ—a rescuer. This can be hard for us in the West to accept. We have a society that beckons us to earn, to pull ourselves up, to go out there, grab life by the horns, and stick it in our pocket. We like control over our own destiny. We like to be the captains of our own vessels.
I suppose the detriment, however, is when this bleeds over into our faith. There’s a part of us that still craves control. If I asked another person, indeed if I asked the superficial version of myself about my assurance of salvation, I could rattle off a litany of statements, all of which start with the word “I”:
I walked down the aisle at church camp as a teenager.
I completed confirmation.
I raised my hand and repeated after the pastor.
I stepped into the pool and got baptized.
I give ten percent.
I volunteer in prisons.
I feed the homeless.
I read scripture every morning.
I pray with my family at night.
I, I, I…
Nothing on the above list is a negative, of course, but if lists similar to this provide our assurances of salvation, I dare say the one thing they all have in common is that they all leave us firmly in the driver’s seat. We’re still in control. We performed A, and in doing so, we twisted God’s arm into performing B. Salvation was something I initiated—the unintentional yet inevitable subtext being—hence I earned it. The same grit and determination that gave me the promotion, earned me my degree, and parked that boat in my driveway is the same determinism that saved my soul. This is all extremism, no doubt, but is this not what we imply when we think of why we are saved from sin and death?
What if salvation/reconciliation with God was completely and utterly out of our hands?
While this is not an essay on predestination or Calvinism, Monergism or Synergism—indeed, the validity of such schools of thought is well above my pay grade—what if we were simply moved to worship the God in whom Christ was pointing toward simply because we’ve been rescued? Perhaps our worship, perhaps the entirety of our devotion, would find much greater depth when the posture of our heart is simply one of having been rescued with no other possible alternative. It was never our hands reaching out to Christ while drowning. It was always the hand of Jesus clinging to us.
I love the story found in the Gospels of the men who tore open the roof of a crowded building so that they might lower their paralytic friend down to Jesus. The broken man had nothing to offer Jesus. He had no communion to receive, no prayers to repeat, nor any water in which to be baptized. In fact, Scripture records not a word he uttered. All he had to offer Christ was his own brokenness, a prone and near lifeless postured before Jesus. What was it that Jesus had to say to the man who didn’t even arrive there on his own volition?
The Christ simply said, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
That’s it. Jesus forgave the man’s sins (before commanding him to get up and walk) without the man even having to ask. Just like the beauty of the Orthodox icons represents, it was Christ reaching down to rescue him, not the other way around.
When Mary lay prostrate in front of Jesus, weeping and cleaning the tears and mud off the feet of the Savior with her own hair under the judgmental glares of her religious betters, without uttering one recorded word or request Jesus raised her to her feet and declared her sins forgiven. She was made whole, or perhaps reminded of her wholeness, without requesting any of it.
The record of the thief on the cross offers no discussion of the man’s sins. Indeed, he still died a thief! Yet Christ welcomed him into the Kingdom that very day.
In all cases, it must have simply been the posture of their hearts… or perhaps it was the posture of the heart of Christ, the Great Rescuer. Jesus looked upon a people incapable of saving themselves, and many times incapable of even requesting such, and deemed them rescued because that’s what Christ does… Christ rescues.
Perhaps then, and only then, we’re left with the choice of our response. When we realize it was never our hand clinging to Christ, but indeed the hands of the Eternal Logos clinging to ours—clenching hard to our wrists during the times of our lives when we assumed a God who Scripture describes simply as Love wanted nothing to do with us—when we realize there is nothing in our hands to bring to the table of our own rescue, the decision is then laid in our lap…
Now what?
Perhaps we can celebrate the Great Rescuer by going outside and breathe God in. Perhaps we can live abundantly and fully, knowing full well that no matter where we go, no matter how lost we feel at times, there’s a strong eternal grip grasping our wrists in love and patience, and I doubt that grip will ever tire.
Whatever that answer is for the individual, I hope it’s one of thanksgiving. I hope it’s one of praise. I hope it’s one of doing the same, at least in the human context. When we see someone who needs a bit of an undeserving rescue in our day-to-day, while we can’t save their wayward soul, perhaps we can relieve whatever suffering has our name on it. Perhaps it’s simply offering a cold drink to a thirsty fellow traveler, as Jesus implied.
Whatever our response, may we rest in the fact that we’re not the rescuer of our soul. There’s great relief here if we allow such a sentiment to melt us a bit, and may we do just that. That’s where this beautiful image of Christ the rescuer finds its utility. We allow it to melt us. We allow it to humble us. We allow it to move us towards the same compassion that grasped our wrists and we fall in love. We fall in Love with others. We fall in love with the life the Rescuer came to give us. We fall in love with the Rescuer. We fall in love with Love.
