I was at St. Stephen's College last week taking a stimulating course on Paul Tillich. It was an intense course where we examined some of the writings and thought of this great theological thinker.

Now, St. Stephen's College is located at the campus of the University of Alberta and about a block away from the college there used to be a large Evangelical Church that had a large sign out front that said, "Jesus Saves." Several blocks away, there was a Safeway and it too had a large sign out front and its sign said, "Safeway saves you more."

Sometimes the word salvation can trip us up. It may conger up images of street-corner preacher, standing on their soapboxes and yelling at us to become saved or suffer eternal damnation. I have a friend who was scared by his ex-girlfriend and her family who put an immense amount of pressure on him to say a particular prayer and with these special words he would be saved, otherwise he was going to burn in hell.

In the Acts passage today, rather than the evangelist attacking the listeners, they, themselves are the ones under attack. Peter and John have just healed a lame man and then proclaimed that through Jesus Christ there is the resurrection of the dead. For doing and saying such things they have been arrested (there is no freedom of speech in ancient Palestine).

And now they stand before the very same people who murdered Jesus and proclaim him raised from the dead, proclaim him Lord. Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak boldly to his accusers, to the people who had power to put him and his friends to death.

This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone. There is salvation in none else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.

There is that word, 'salvation' again. Saved by Jesus.

When I think of my salvation, I think of grace. But, why do evangelic preacher so often put pressure on people?

Paul Henderson scored the winning goal against the Soviet Union in the 1972 Summit Series and it is the most remembered and celebrated hockey goal ever. He came to visit my evangelism class in Toronto as a guest speaker. He gave his testimonial in which he told us about his many years of spiritual struggle in the past. He was looking for meaning, but was very skeptical of Christianity. He would read over the Bible constantly, and frequently invite people over to ask them questions and challenge them and get them to try and convince him to believe. He kept this up for three years before he finally admitted that he believed. When he came to embrace the freedom life in Jesus Christ gives, he made a deal with God. He said, "Ok God, I believe, I accept what Jesus has done for me. But for goodness sake do not ask me ever to tell anyone else."

Well, he kind of got over that initial fear and after awhile took up the cause with determination. Paul Henderson now travels the country giving evangelical revival meetings. He told us that the approach he uses in evangelizing is to try and get people to convert to Christianity that night. The story he tells is supposed to inspire people to become Christians that night. They have an alter call and he counts and celebrates the number of souls that have been saved that night. But in all this, he doesn't validate his own experience, poor fella. He expects people to become Christians in a totally different way than he did. He does not realize his own experience is the human experience.

Salvation takes time. We all need time. It takes time to learn. It takes time to hear God. The Grace of God gives us this time.

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation from one another, from God, from who we are called to be, is deeper than usual. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying:

"You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!" If that happens to us, we experience grace. And when we embrace, when we allow ourselves to feel that grace, then we experience salvation.

After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin. Nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual understanding, nothing but acceptance." (Paul Tillich, The Essential Tillich, ed. F. Forrester Church, The University of Chicago Press: 1999)

Famous hymn writer, John Newton did not begin his working life as the pious minister and hymn writer that he is now know for. When Newton was a teenager, he was enslaved on a lime plantation in Sierra Leon. For 15 months he endured the harsh life of slavery and then rejoiced when he was delivered into freedom by a sea captain. He then worked in the slave trade, actively taking part in the sale of humans.

Throughout his life at sea, John Newton alternately embraced and abandoned religion. Each period of peaceful contemplation was countered by spiritual upheaval... and then the event that changed his life occurred.

Newton was on a ship heading home for England when a violent storm arose. The storm overtook the ship, just off the coast of Newfoundland, filling the cabin with water and ripping the wood off of one side of the boat. At one point in the night, after hours of baling water, Newton asked the Lord for mercy. Then he asked himself, what mercy could there be for him, a slave trader?

It was a miracle that the whole crew survived that night. After 36 hours the storm finally died down. Most of the livestock had been washed overboard and there was little food.

It was at this time that Newton began to realize that there is a God that hears and answers prayers. For the rest of his life, he observed the anniversary of the storm, for it was on that day that God and delivered him out of the deep water.

But, John Newton continued to transport slaves to the West Indies for 6 more years. Finally he resigned and became a tide surveyor for 9 years. It was during this time that Newton felt called to the ministry. And so at the age of 39 John Newton was ordained in the Methodist church. He became known for his powerful preaching and for his work and publications against the slave trade. He presented evidence against the slave trade to Parliamentary committees and the year that he died, 1807, was the year that Britain finally abolished the slave trade.

You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. If that happens to us, we experience grace. And John Newton did do much. He experienced grace is away that plain words have a difficult time describing. So, he wrote it in a song. Let us sing, "Amazing Grace"

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