“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.
I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.”—Isaiah 43:10-11 (ESV)Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among humanity
by which we must be saved.”—Acts 4:8-12 (ESV, alt.)This is the church’s message, it’s the word God has given us: there is no other god in heaven and no other redeemer on this earth; there is no other name in heaven or on earth or under the earth by which anyone may be saved. There is no one else in whom we can put our hope and faith and trust. There is no other. Period, full stop, end of sentence. That’s our message, to each other and to the world—and make no mistake, we always need to begin by reminding ourselves of that, because it’s so easy to get off into putting our trust in other things. We always need to make sure that we’re really living in the good news ourselves before we try to share it with others.It can be difficult to keep that focus, whether in hard times or in easy ones; but I do think that hard times like the ones we’re experiencing now are particularly opportune times to preach this good news. Anyone who reads the headlines and watches the news has figured out something they might not have figured out before: they’ve come to the realization that the economy isn’t going to save them. Their jobs, their resumés, their paychecks, aren’t going to save them. The banks aren’t going to save them, and if they have any investments, those aren’t going to save them either.They’ve figured out that Congress isn’t going to save them; and judging by the opinion polls, folks are starting to figure out that the president isn’t going to save them either. With some of the rhetoric that got thrown around last year, I think a lot of people really believed we’d elected a new messiah; I think it’s starting to register that all we did was all we ever do, which is elect another politician. Which is something we should also remember two years from now, and four years from now—even if we end up with a new president and a whole new Congress, they aren’t going to save us either. Regardless of party, politicians are still politicians—even the best of them.What’s more, we aren’t going to save ourselves. Our plans won’t save us. Our possessions won’t save us. Our big ideas won’t save us, and neither will our little ones. Our inspirations won’t save us, and our inventions won’t do the trick either, even if we can come up with any. All these are good things, and necessary; none of them are enough, even if we put them all together. We cannot save ourselves, and we cannot save each other; and none of the things we value can save us either. There is only one Savior, and he is Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God; there is only one God who redeems, and there is hope for the future—and for the present, for that matter—in nothing and no one else. This is the message God has given us for the world; our call is to share it freely.Interestingly, the importance of this was made clear recently by the great stage magician and avowed atheist Penn Jillette, of Penn & Teller. I agree wholeheartedly with what the Anchoress had to say when she posted this clip last December:
With some understandable reservation, I have always liked Penn Jillette. Intelligence sizzles off of him the way I imagine it did with John Quincy Adams. He is articulate, urbane, insightful, mischievous and acerbically funny, and he manages to be all of those things without going into the condescension, dismissiveness and arrogance that some (think: Bill Maher) latch onto in college and extend into a sort of perpetually adolescent sneer-and-kneejerk.He is also, clearly, a guy who thinks—you cannot come up with an act like Penn & Teller with a closed mind—and, perhaps because his schtick is all about illusion and unreality, one gets the impression that Penn Jillette does work to keep the world around him, and himself, “real” by his own lights.So it is interesting, and moving, to watch this gifted man struggle to bring words and context to something that surprised him—to keep things as “real” as he can, while engaged in mild (but also real) wonder and awe.I like this video because it is a rare thing to see any man or woman expose themselves in this way—in a way that says, “I had a wow-experience and I am not afraid to tell you about it, even though half of you may say I’m a sentimental chump and the other half of you will say I’m hell-bound chum.” I like it because even though he resolutely insists that he’s still a good atheist, he is not too proud to say he was moved by a “good man” who believes very differently. I like it because he is not afraid of a fight, or to show us a moment where his intellect and his heart are engaged in a bit of a tussle.That’s courageous. It’s rare. Left or right, believer or atheist, it’s rare, and so I admire it.There is a message to Christians, here; two, actually. The first is passive: make note of the fact that it was a gentle Christian who was willing to accept Jillette where he was, as he was, with openness and a positive mien, who was able to touch him. Aggressiveness and negativity won’t get you there, which is why Christ eschewed it.The second message is as far from passive as you can get, and it comes from Jillette himself: “How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible, and not tell them that?”
Penn’s right. If we really believe this, we need to act like it.(Excerpted, edited, from “No Other Redeemer”)