A man once came into my office and told me of two epiphanies. Before I describe those epiphanies, I would like to say a little bit about him. I shall call him David to protect his anonymity.
David was sixty-nine years old, a college graduate, very intelligent, active in the church, a war veteran having seen terrible action, divorced with a child that would hardly speak to him, "a heartbreak most every day," remarried with a family, and tormented by an addiction that he could not seem to shake.
As an active church member he had taught Sunday school, been a counselor, served on various commissions and committees, and helped out in worship services. Although he sincerely believed in God the Father, he had struggled for many years as to whether or not Jesus was divine. He sincerely professed that Jesus was the savior, yet he was often plagued with doubt. When I met him he was still actively seeking a true belief that Jesus was the Son of God.
Some six months before coming to see me, he was reading the sixth chapter of John's gospel. In this passage Jesus tells his followers that they should eat his body and drink his blood. As a result of this teaching, many disciples left him. Jesus then asked his twelve disciples, "Do you also wish to go away?" Peter replied, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life." As David read this, he suddenly perceived something with utter clarity. On the one hand, he stood on the edge of an abyss, an endless void. David described the void with these words,
Everything that was in any way spiritual died and ended. Standing on the edge of a cliff, looking at this stuff, this darkness, and trying to see something, anything, yet there was nothing there. Believe me, Rob, I could not have imagined that. It was too horrible, too terrible.
As he stood gazing into the darkness, he knew he could step into the void. "I believed that I would have had to consciously and intentionally reject God, and then I would have been off the cliff. I don't believe that anyone is damned by accident. It is a choice, or a series of a lot of little choices."
Having seen the void, he also saw another alternative, Jesus Christ as the transcendent Lord, Savior, and God. At that point, for the first time, he was able to make an absolute choice. He could chose Christ or the abyss. Whatever he did, he wasn't simply trying something, trying out the Christian faith. This was it. He was making a final choice without reservations. As he put it, "For a lot of my life I have tried out a lot of things with reservations, but this was with no reservations, no reservations." He went on to say,
I believe that from an early age, and probably reinforced by the military, I learned not to make absolute commitments. You always held back something. You might need it, which is probably what wrecked my first marriage. Even then, I never let go absolutely of my ego. And even today I take it back sometimes, but it doesn't feel right anymore. The shoe don't fit no more. Maybe I used to just lend myself to God, but now I have given myself to God. The idea of letting go absolutely is scary, to this ego of mine, it is scary. I've been hurt too much. But not to let go is scarier, is worse.
When he told me this I mentioned how Jesus asked his disciples who he was. They said that other people thought Jesus was one of the prophets. So Jesus asked who they thought he was. Peter then confessed Jesus as the Christ, and Jesus responded, "Blessed are you Simon Son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who in heaven." (Mt. 16:17) In my view, and David's as well, God revealed to David the final reality, the real choice, an abyss of death or life in Christ. Once he saw this, he could not go back. His life was changed forever. It was not simply knowing about various conceptual alternatives, whether Christ is God or not, it was actually perceiving who Jesus really is, what would happen without him, and that a personal relationship with him was possible. Then, and only then, was he truly able to choose.
Some months after God revealed these final choices, David had another epiphany. He was again reading John, the section where Jesus tells his disciples that he has gone to prepare a place for them, a place beyond the power of death, given in his resurrection. As David read this it suddenly became clear that he must accept this truth in its entirety. Accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior meant "accepting the whole package," not simply pieces of it. "The gospel is not a smorgasbord where you take what you like and leave the rest. You can only take it all." Until then, he had only considered eternal life as a concept. At that moment, in the epiphany, the concept of eternal life became a reality. "Until then it had been eternal life, question mark, but now it was eternal life, exclamation point." Since then he has been different.
My acceptance of my circumstances here on earth has changed. It is not about me. Somebody once told me to wear the world like a loose garment, and I never understood it before. Now I do. I can do that. Most of the time. I am still a sinner, I do not believe for a moment that I am going to become a goody-two-shoes, or shining example, or anything like that. I am still a sinner. And we're not sinners because we sin, we sin because we're sinners. But, having said that, all is well.
Here is a passage from Deuteronomy, a passage that occurred to David as we talked: "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Chose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you ... " Deuteronomy 30:19-20.
The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
