Epicenter Conversations

Several weeks ago we watched a clip from the emotionally wrenching short film, The Most (most means bridge in czech). The acting, cinemetography, and original story line contributions by Bobby Garabedian and William Zabka make this one of the most compelling short films I have seen even though the plot is based on a familiar Christian "urban legend" and prolific sermon illustration.

For those of you who haven't seen the film. The plot is based on the story of a bridge operator whose son falls into the gears of the elevated bridge just as a train is coming. The father is then faced with the agonizing choice to lower the bridge and save the people on the train or to leave the bridge up and save his son. This popular sermon illustration has always troubled me because by analogy it places God within a classic Greek tragic moral dilemma. Greek story and play writers seemed to love to place their protagonists between 'Scylla and Charybdis' -- presenting them with moral dilemmas and a few bad options any of which would lead to troubling outcomes.

However, in The Most a new character is developed. She is a young woman in the process of losing her life to drugs. We see her about to shoot up as the train rushes past the gutted father. She alone on the train notices him and as the drugs fall from her hands she seems to realize the weight of what has happened, perhaps sensing the selfless act of the grieving man. At the end of the movie, the transformation is complete as we see her again. She is clean with a smiling baby who is waving to the bridge operator. Salvation is here.

Who does or does not get into heaven is none of our business. Many people who claim to follow Jesus will emphatically maintain that only those who know Jesus by name through a personal relationship will be in heaven. However in the analogy above, everyone on the train was saved and reached the station whether or not they knew the name or anything about the son who gave his life. One person on the other hand recognized at least a portion of what occurred that day and was transformed in that moment. The rest survived -- she began to fully live.

Could it be that life has come to the entire world through Jesus Christ regardless of whether they have heard the name? Is it possible that everyone will survive by the selfless act of God who loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in him should be saved? (I intentionally juxtaposed survive with saved in this sentence to highlight the point that perhaps saved is as much or more about a transformed life now than where one spends eternity. Intimately interrelated though they may be.)

I don't want to get bogged down in a debate over universalism so I will admit that some people may have jumped off the train before it got to the station and there may be some people who would choose to refuse such a great salvation. Instead, I want to focus on the transformation of the lost woman. She was transformed by a self-giving act -- a true act of love. Her recognition of the heartrending action undertaken for her had immediate and very practical results.

This seems to me the best reason for evangelism. I do believe that there will be a second Advent and only then will God's kingdom come into its fullness. And yet, my opinion is that evangelism should focus more on the present reality of a relationship with God than on the intangible future benefits of heaven. If in presenting the gospel we can help ourselves and others to more fully realize that the kingdom of God is here (if only in part) and that the self-giving God of love has provided a way for all to enter it (even now), perhaps we could all begin to more fully live and be transformed by the renewing of our hearts. The moral imperative for evangelism is therefore the desire to help humanity become more fully human through a glimpse of God's character as revealed by Jesus Christ. Salvation is here.