Hospital chaplain Rick Lee James explores what salvation actually means, arguing it's not a single moment of being "saved" but a lifelong process of transformation and union with Christ. Drawing on scripture, Luther, and N.T. Wright, he shows how salvation reshapes identity and is lived out in community, especially in the hospital where patients depend on families and caregivers.
Welcome back to Voices in My Head.
As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James.
I'm so glad you're here with me today.
I'm actually going to be talking about salvation. I want to start with this quote from the book Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone by Father James Martin. The directee might naturally ask theological questions And at times the director might respond. But a spiritual director is focused less on theological education and more on the directee's experience of God. As Karl Rahner said, "Knowing God is more important than knowing about God." On the phone, a patient's relative said to me, "He isn't saved." I hope I can get there before he dies to help him pray through. At that moment, I wasn't sure what the correct response was. Perhaps I still don't know. I wish I had asked him, "How do you know he is not saved? Can you share your relative's experience of God in his life? How have you experienced God in your own life? Does your relative's experience of God have to look like yours? Lately I've been asking basic questions again, and the most basic one I keep returning to is what we mean by salvation when we talk about it. Asking a person if they are saved seems like the wrong question entirely. There's no record of Jesus asking a person that. To the rich young ruler, Jesus asks, "Why do you call me good?" and "What do you lack?" To his disciples, he asks, "Who do you say I am?" To Nicodemus, Jesus asks, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?" But nowhere does he ask specifically if a person is saved. I guess I prefer the questions of a spiritual director because of my work in chaplaincy, like, "What is your experience of God in daily life and prayer?" And it makes me think, as I get into some good trouble on this podcast today, possibly, makes me think of John Lewis, the late congressman and civil rights leader. He often spoke about getting into good trouble, the kind of trouble that disrupts injustice and brings about real change in the world. And he was arrested and beaten and threatened, but he kept walking forward in faith, believing that love and justice were worth the cost. People like Lewis, well, their lives point to a deeper truth about salvation. That salvation isn't just about what happens after we die. It's about the kind of people we are becoming right now. It's about transformation, about being freed from sin's power. Many of us grew up hearing that salvation is about believing in Jesus so we can go to heaven when we die, but Scripture And even church tradition teaches that salvation is much more than a ticket to the afterlife. It's a lifelong process of becoming more like Christ, of living as if God's kingdom is already here. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 6, verses 3 and 4, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. The early church saw salvation as being united with Christ in his death and resurrection, walking in newness of life. Baptism wasn't just a symbolic ritual. It was marked by a radical transformation, a death to the old self and a resurrection into a new way of life. Martin Luther said, "In baptism, the old Adam drowns, but the old Adam is a pretty good swimmer." Well, salvation is not simply about agreeing to a set of beliefs. It's not just about praying a prayer; it's about stepping into a relationship with the living, risen Christ, a relationship that reshapes us over time. The actor Andrew Garfield, when reflecting on his role as a Jesuit priest in the film Silence, described his experience of preparing for the role as falling in love with Jesus. Well, that's really what salvation is. It's a love story, a daily surrender to Christ's transforming love and presence in our lives. Paul says in Colossians 1:13-14, he has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Salvation is not just about avoiding hell. It's about being freed from everything that keeps us from living in God's love. It's about being liberated from fear, resentment, selfishness, and the burdens we carry. It's about letting God love us. In one of my favorite movies, which is also an amazing book, Wonder. The main character, Auggie Pullman, is a young boy with a rare genetic condition that affects his face, and he struggles with how the world sees him. He's bullied, excluded, and he's made to feel like he doesn't belong anywhere. He wears an astronaut helmet to try to hide his face away from the world, to be alone and isolated physically and emotionally because facing the world is just too hard. But one day his helmet comes up missing and it stays missing for quite a long while. Eventually Augie discovers that his father, played by Owen Wilson in the movie, is the one who has hidden the helmet. Augie is furious. He's mad at his father that his his very own father would hide his helmet from him, the thing that helps protect him from the world. But Auggie's father tells him that he hid the helmet because he wants to see his son's face. The father looks at Auggie and he says to him about his face, "I know you don't always like it, but I love it. That's my son's face." I think that's how God sees us. We may not always love what we see in the mirror. We may feel ugly, broken, or unworthy. But salvation, it's God's persistent, loving work of shaping us into something beautiful, even when we don't see it ourselves, even if the world doesn't see it. God looks at us and says, "That's my child's face, and I love it. I love you." And love makes us beautiful. God's love makes us beautiful. I believe that's true. Tell a person they are ugly, unloved, unworthy long enough, and they will believe you. Tell a person they are lovely, precious, special. Eventually their self-image may begin to change for the better too. The story of Christ on the cross, bearing the worst that man could do to him, is a story of God stretching out his arms to his beloved children and saying, "I love you this much." And it was not just for one person, but for the whole of creation, for all things to be made new. The early Christians understood that salvation was not just an individual experience; it was something they lived out together. Acts chapter 2 describes how the first believers devoted themselves to teaching, to sharing meals, to praying, and to meeting one another's needs. Salvation is not a solo journey; we need each other. We have to have each other for salvation. That's why we gather in spaces together to worship, to remind each other of God's promises, to lift each other up, to pray, to walk the road together. In the hospital where I work, I see this in profound ways. Patients lean on families, on nurses, on chaplains and doctors, just as we are meant to lean on one another in faith.
Faith.
Healing, whether physical or spiritual, happens in community. Salvation points us towards a greater healing. Revelation 21:1-4 gives us this vision of the future. It says, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them." they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more. And we live in the tension between the already and the not yet, between the salvation we experience now and the fullness of God's kingdom that is still to come. And because of Christ, we live with hope. So what do we mean by salvation? What does it mean to be saved? It's not just about a moment of decision. It's about walking in union with Christ, being freed from sin, being transformed daily, living in community, and holding on to hope of what is to come. Salvation is letting God love you. It's falling in love with Jesus. It's hearing God say, "That's my child's face, and I love it. I love you." And it's saying back to God, "I love you too." To make it absolutely as simple as I can think of how to do it, salvation is what happens when you let God love you. And it's stepping forward in faith knowing that God is making us new right here, right now. To paraphrase N.T. Wright, salvation is not about us getting into heaven. Salvation is about heaven getting into us. Thank you again for listening to Voices in My Head.
As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James, coming to you this morning at 4 o'clock in the morning after my workout. If you are enjoying this podcast, I hope you'll listen to some of our past episodes. You can go to rickleejames.com to find out more. About me, my music, what I do in my work as chaplain. I work as a chaplain in a hospital, if you didn't know that. You probably did if you've heard this podcast before. Also, just wanted to let you know in closing, my book Out of the Depths: The Songwriter's Journey Through the Storms just became available as an audiobook on Audible.com. So if you look up Rick James, for some reason I don't have it listed as Rick Lee James, you can just type in the scripture Rick Lee James. But if you look up Out of the Depths: The Songwriter and Through the Sobs, you'll be able to find it. Thanks so much for listening to Voices in My Head. God bless you. Have a wonderful day. And I'll talk to you later.
