That Way It’s Not Yours to Lose

by David Baer | published: Thursday, February 13, 2014, 3:31 PM

When I marry a couple, I always ask them to give me the wedding license at the rehearsal. I do this for a couple of reasons. The first is that I want to make sure everything is legal and in order, of course. The second reason, though, comes from my own hard-won experience. At my own wedding, after my wife and I had said our vows and walked down the aisle together out of the sanctuary, the minister asked for the wedding license to sign, and I had left it in the hotel room. Fortunately my cousin volunteered to run and get it, and within ten minutes everybody had signed, the ink was drying, and we were married in the eyes of the law. But it was an anxious moment that I had unnecessarily created, one critical overlooked detail among so many. And so now I tell every couple just to bring their license to the rehearsal and put it in my hands. Once this is done, they can relax and give themselves over to enjoying their wedding.

Last month I came across an article in the New York Times, “Evangelicals Find Themselves in the Midst of a Calvinist Revival” (Mark Oppenheimer, Jan 3 2014). Oppenheimer’s article talked about the teachings of the sixteenth century French Protestant reformer John Calvin, one of which it summarized as follows: “God has already decided who will be saved, without regard to any condition in them, or anything they can do to earn their salvation.” (This idea is known as “predestination.”) As so many others have done before him, and as so many others will undoubtedly continue to do, Mr. Oppenheimer characterized Calvin’s thought as a grim and joyless system of doctrine. Calvin’s teachings contrast, he says, with “feel-good affirmations” of other preachers and authors. They find their way into unsuspecting churches, according to critics, “through sneaky methods,” such as pastors failing to disclose their theological leanings to interview committees.

I wonder, though, whether anyone is interested in why so many people respond with joy and thanksgiving to a supposedly grim and fatalistic idea. Some of you may know that the thought of John Calvin undergirds much of what Presbyterians believe. The idea of predestination is not intended to provoke despair, as though nothing we do matters, but a sense of security and gratitude. My eternal salvation is not going to be misplaced or carelessly left behind like my wedding license. It is in the hands of Someone who is much more faithful and trustworthy than I will ever be. And because I don’t need to worry about losing it, or earning it in the first place, my life takes on a different character. It is not a performance that needs to impress God or keep me in God’s good graces, with all the anxiety that provokes. I can just be in God’s presence. Life with God is about giving thanks for the gift I’ve been given, insofar as I am able, and trusting that God will shape me the way I need to be shaped. This is not a “cheery” doctrine, to use Oppenheimer’s word, but there is deep joy and peace beneath the surface for those who care to look.

Sometimes theology can sound abstract or removed from everyday life, so let’s make it concrete. Think of the comfort someone in the grip of an addiction might take from meeting God as a warm, steady presence drawing them toward a wholeness they may fully reach only in the next life, instead of someone who is going to turn away at every relapse. Think about your own difficult relationships and the utter impossibility of healing some wounds—and imagine a God whose favor, whose love doesn’t depend on us getting our act together first, and doesn’t fail when we do. Your life, present and future, is held not in your own feeble hands, but by the everlasting arms. Doesn’t that change what’s important to you and what you worry about?

Put your wedding license in the preacher’s hands. Put your salvation in God’s. Relax, be grateful, and enjoy.

A version of this piece appeared in the February 2014 issue of the Highlands Highlights.