Oh, what’s this, some of you might say. Is this new? No, and it’s not the decision to leave the prairies for British Columbia in 2005. It’s not even getting married in 1977. Nor is it choosing to go into medicine as a career in 1965. It’s a decision I made when I was a youngster of seven years of age, maybe six.
I refer to my decision to become a Christian. Actually, it was not entirely different than the decision many children make to follow the faith of their parents, their ancestors. When you grow up in a certain faith, to begin with, that I all you know. You accept it as the norm.
You see, I come from a line of Christians that can be traced back to the Reformation in the 1600s in Europe. My ancestors were likely Dutch and had become part of the Anabaptist movement. They were called that because they chose to be re-baptized on confession of their own faith. They had come to the conclusion, through their study of the scriptures, the Bible, which was becoming available because of the printing press, that the infant baptism practiced by The Church at the time was not biblically based. This had been the practice of the Roman Catholic Church for centuries. The first Reformers, the Lutheran and then Reformed Church, continued the practice, as did bodies like the Church of England and the Presbyterian Church after that.
So, my parents, at least to me at the time and in my growing up years, were wonderful models of what I have come to understand it means to be a Christian. Our home was filled with love, generosity and hospitality. Our parents helped many a neighbour.
My parents were in fact what we called missionaries. They had felt called to live among Manitoba’s indigenous people and be a witness there to the message they had come to believe in their own lives. Father was our pastor. He and mother were our Sunday school teachers and music leaders. Sometimes there were extra activities for children and in the summer, Daily Vacation Bible School. Father, for the Protestants, and the local Roman Catholic priest for the Catholics, even taught Religion classes in the local school, which was allowed then (this was the early 1950s).
So, I had heard the story of the Bible from infancy on. I knew the good news, the gospel message. Simply put, it was that all we humans have gone astray from the way our Creator God had intended. He had sent his Son, the long-promised Anointed One (Messiah in Hebrew or Christ in Greek) to become one of us humans, the miracle of God become man – the big word is Incarnate – to show us what God was really like and what God was about. Ultimately, the world did not want to see it, hear it and - we likely know the story – Jesus, his human name, was killed; crucified in fact. However, three days later he shocked everyone by rising from the dead to live a further forty days on earth before disappearing out of his followers’ sight, saying he was returning to heaven.
In those forty days, Jesus clarified what his death and resurrection were all about. We, mere humans, could never make our way back to our original state, much as we might like to. Our current state ends in death though – permanent separation from our Creator. Jesus showed and taught that God did not want that. He loved us, his creation, too much for that to be left uncorrected. God wanted to restore that relationship, but how? The only way was for Christ, as God, to take our place, take on our fallen state and die in our stead. Jesus and the Apostles after him explained that this miracle was possible through God’s love, mercy and grace. All we had to do was believe this message, accept that what Jesus did to remove our separation from God.
As a young child, I was aware that there were too many times I had failed and disappointed my parents. In those days, it was still customary to get the strap if you were naughty, if you did wrong. I knew my parents did not like to administer that punishment. They told us so. Father would say it hurt him as much as us to have to do this. One evening, I broke down in tears and asked my parents what I needed to do to solve this dilemma. I neither wanted to disappoint them nor hurt them.
As I think back on this, I think – what a wonderful way to model how God feels towards us. God does not want us to have the consequence of our actions – death – either. He loves us too much to see us disappear from relationship with him in death. After all, he made us to share his love. He also hurts when we do wrong.
My parents pulled out a Bible and read a couple of verses to us – my younger sister was joining me in this by this time. They were I John 2:1-2: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father (God), Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the world.”
In other words, Jesus had made the ultimate sacrifice for us. Not only that, he was now pleading or case before his father in Heaven. If Jesus was doing that for us, what more could one ask.
My sister and I accepted these words that evening. We prayed with our parents, acknowledging or unhappy state and felt and believed that God had indeed forgiven us, accepted us back, and that from then on, we were right with God. We had entered into a new relationship with God which is what God wanted all along. That was some sixty-five years ago and I have never looked back. I wish everyone could share this.
Now, if you have read this far, some of you who are skeptic might say – you were a child, what did you know. Indeed, the unspoken question there is why am I still a Christian. That is another story. I hope I get to tell it too.
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