What does it really mean to be ‘saved?’

“Are you saved?” This is a question posed to me with some regularity. My immediate response is an assuring “yes.” However, when I give my answer, I suspect the answer that I have given, if understood, would not really satisfy the inquirer.

A friend recently offered a profound observation. Words do not have meanings. Words only have uses. That is the way it is with the word “saved.” The word has many uses. The word may have a particular meaning for the person asking the question, but there is a strong chance that the listener does not assign the same meaning to the word.

In everyday use, we speak of saving in the sense of rescue from peril. Rescue someone from danger and we will make tomorrow’s headline. We save money, we save food, we save face, we save time, we save the day. Political candidates may promise to save the city, the state or even the nation. Sales persons promise that we can save on our next purchase of a car, a carton of ice cream, or a loaf of bread. Everyone gets into the saving game.

Being raised in a Baptist household with devout church-going parents, I learned a very special use of the word saved. It clearly was a religious use. To be saved was to be rescued from judgment and punishment for my sins. It meant that there was a place reserved for Howard Bess for all eternity in heaven. I confessed that Jesus Christ was my personal savior. I was baptized, and I began my life journey as a saved person. I was secure forever and ever because I was saved.

Life is a journey. In my educational journey I began learning more about the experience of being saved. I learned that even in the Bible there are varying perspectives of the saved life. I learned, first, that I have been saved, second, that I was being saved and three, that I will be saved. With this insight, I began to understand myself as a work in progress. I also learned that the definition of being saved with which I had grown up was limited at best. In the Bible the more basic use of the word saved is to be made whole. Over time, I learned that the goal of life was to become a whole person and it would be a life-long process.

According to the Luke Gospel, Jesus, at the beginning of his active ministry, walked into a synagogue, opened a scroll to a poetic challenge from the prophet Isaiah and read the passage that set the course for his ministry. Jesus declared that his work was about getting resources for the poor, freeing prisoners, bringing sight to the blind and demanding a more just structure to the social order. Please note that his declaration was not about getting people to be more devout in their religious practices. His declaration was about the basic ingredients people need to live a decent life. He set out to bring justice to oppressed people. He wanted people to be made whole.

The stories that he told and the sayings that he shared with his audiences followed that theme. Jews in Galilee were a poor, downtrodden people who had been robbed of their dignity through poverty and social ostracism. They were not whole people. They had been defeated by life’s injustices. Jesus took on the task of bringing wholeness to his own Jewish brothers and sisters. The God that Jesus presented to his audiences was a God of justice, who promised a new day.

The efforts of Jesus were short-lived — three years at best. His ideas got him into trouble with the people with power. They killed him to get rid of him. He was a nuisance. He wanted his people to be saved, to be made whole. Somehow, the agenda of Jesus did not fit the agenda of the rich and the powerful.

The task of helping people and society to be whole continues to this day.

Being a Christian is about being saved, but we need to be thoughtful about the use of the term. Christian salvation is a work in progress. It is never complete as long as any part of God’s creation is left out of the wholeness experience. Christian faith has no place for a heaven with gates. Being a follower of Jesus means that his concerns are our concerns, that his commitments are our commitments, and that his motives are our motives. The God that Jesus called Heavenly Father desires that the whole world be healed and that every person be made whole. That is what being saved is all about.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbssd@mtaonline.net.

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