Safety or Salvation?

 There is salvation in no one else . . . 

 - From Acts, Chapter 4

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Salvation: Preservation or deliverance from destruction, difficulty, or evil.

Safety: The condition of being safe; freedom from danger, risk, or injury.

Our primary objective has evolved, from salvation, to safety. At the start of my life, there was a general sense, in society, of understanding eternity. Pop culture made more references to it. The idea of Heaven, or eternal life, was readily accessible to people. Sermons, speeches, narratives, and even fables, seemed always to point back to the idea of: this life is not all there is. 

In 2021, we seem consumed with, and deferential toward, immediate needs. Or more accurately, immediate wants. Immediacy is a decidedly selfish concern. Eternity is most definitely outward-focused. In exercising our grasp of eternity, we automatically become outward focused. A person with confidence in eternity develops a growing heart and spirit. Infinity is the boundary to everything. Abundance is the paradigm. There is more than enough to go around. Therefore we become more charitable, more buoyant, more joyful. We can think beyond our own selfishness. 

Salvation denotes the pre-eminence of eternity. Salvation is a thing. A possession. It carries with it a sense of completion. If you have salvation, then you have mastery over destruction. The definition above, (From the American Heritage Dictionary) even denotes salvation is conveying supremacy over evil. "Evil" itself denotes the ultimate in harm, or danger, to humanity. 

"Safety" is different. It only refers to immediate troubles. You can go into a shelter to be safe from a tornado. But the shelter isn't permanent. You are safe from risk. Insurance policies give you safety by covering your risk. Paychecks keep you safe from want. 

Masks keep you safe from breathing infectious molecules that may have escaped through someone else's mask.

Pharmaceutical injections, sometimes called "vaccines" make you safe from developing symptoms of a specific infectious disease. 

But there are no 100% guarantees of anything that makes us safe. But safety measures are, themselves, immediate. They are here and now. We can touch them and see them. Therefore, we presume to be safe, or at least . . . safer.

Not so with salvation. But salvation is NOT something you can see or touch, at least in the present age. It takes faith to believe you have it. 

Years ago, Rev. Harry Schaefer, the rector of St James Episcopal Church in Dexter, Michigan said this, in a sermon. He was referring to the saying: "Jesus Saves." His comment was "What does He save us from?"

Indeed . . . What does He save us from? This is the problem. Our generation is so immediate, so present-tense, so focused on what it can touch, feel, see, taste, or experience, that it perceives only immediate danger. 

I can see and feel a gun. Guns kills. Therefore, I must not have any guns near me. 

I can feel pain. I can be out of breath. I can have a fever. I can be connected to a ventilator. Therefore, I must take measures to prevent me from experience all of the above. Or more accurately . . . I must decrease my risk. 

Risk is not a factor in salvation. There is no such thing as "risk" to them that have it. 

Risk is a factor in safety.

Our generation is more cognizant of safety, than it is of salvation. 

Jesus Saves. 

He saves us from every worrying, ever again, about what can harm our bodies. When we look back on these days, from Eternity, we may very well question one another: "What were we so worried about?"