My conscience was awakened at a state church confirmation camp. Before the camp ended, the parish pastor interviewed all the students and asked each one the same question: “What does Jesus mean to you?” My friend answered that Jesus meant nothing at all to him. It was an honest answer. I understood that if I were honest, I’d have to answer the same way. Still, I would have liked to give a different kind of answer. I would have wanted to say that Jesus meant something to me, but I couldn’t give that answer, no matter how much I wanted to.
After confirmation school my life changed to that of the average young unbeliever, which was at times rough. Often, during weekends of partying, I wondered whether this is all my life really is. Does my life have nothing more to offer than mind-numbing, drunken weekends that at some point have to stop? I yearned for better but didn’t know if there was such a thing. What would it be and where could I find it? No alternatives were offered.
A believer?
When, as a young adult, I spoke for the first time with believers about matters of faith, I noticed that they did not consider me a believer. Their relating to me like this offended me. I believed that God existed, and I hadn’t committed bad sins—killed anyone—and I’d been a good citizen. I tried to prove the adequacy of my faith, especially to myself. I thought that my faith was surely enough for God, but “believerhood” was, in my mind, something entirely different.
A believer, in my mind, was an entirely good person and he had to practice a lot of Christian activities: go listen to God’s word, read the Bible, pray a lot, and have fellowship with other believers. A true believer didn’t have any doubts, and his faith was completely strong. In my mind, only such a person could call himself a believer, and talk about it to others. I knew full well that I was not that kind of Christian.
To me, faith was the sort of thing that people achieved by and within themselves. I thought some were just capable of believing, and it was clearly of their own doing. Some succeeded in it better than others, and some were more exemplary than others. I did not consider myself that kind of believer. But still I believed that God accepted me—of course, he did—a decent person without any truly evil and ugly sins.
An outsider
When I then sat for the first time at services, the sermons seemed all the same, and they didn’t touch me in any way. I thought of the people sitting in services as so much “hay”, and felt myself to be a foreigner and outsider. I didn’t even know if I wanted to belong to the group.
I felt on the outside and alone. I knew that I couldn’t believe as “they” believed. I knew that I couldn’t even if I might want to, and did not know if I even wanted to. I clearly understood that I couldn’t squeeze that kind of faith out of myself. It was clear, in other words, that I wouldn’t gain “their” acceptance. Nevertheless, I noticed that, for some reason, I longed for that acceptance.
Grace
A crucial change occurred later, when in discussion after services a question was put to me: “Do you want to get to heaven?” I understood that life’s most important question had been posed to me. I realized that I stood before God, even though a person posed the question. I also knew how to answer this question. I wanted to. I wanted precisely that—to get to heaven. The gospel was preached to me, and I was able to believe my sins forgiven.
The situation didn’t involve any greater drama—no overwhelming sense of sinfulness and distress, nor any kind of hopeless search for mercy. I felt only how lacking I was, and wanted for myself what I was missing. I wanted connection and belonging to God. I clearly felt that I couldn’t do anything on my own to establish that connectedness. Faith didn’t come from me; I had done nothing. God revealed in a concrete way that faith was his gift, his work—something he effects.
Later I understood that I had experienced what Luther describes in the Small Catechism, in the explanation to the Third Article of the Creed: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel”. God, the Shepherd, himself seeks his lost sheep even if the sheep hasn’t sought him. I did not choose God; rather, God chose me. I hadn’t even known to search for God, though I believed in his existence. God was nevertheless unknown to me, existing only on a knowledge level. God was not alive to me, not living within me.
There was no merit of my own in the birth of faith in me. That which I had earlier thought to be achieved by man himself, was now revealed as God’s work and of his merit only. Faith was God’s gift, and it freed me from all of my own attempts to possess this gift. Receiving the grace of repentance was like returning home. I returned to the home whose existence I had only faintly perceived. It was no longer most important that people would accept me, but instead that God forgives me and receives me into his unity.
Change
Later, I found assurance and explanation for many matters from God’s word. God’s word, both preached and written, became important to me, as did discussions of faith matters with believers. In these ways and with time faith has found structure. I came to understand what it says in the Bible:”Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the Lord your God” (Jer. 3:13).
No further feeling of sin is required. You do not need to measure the greatness of your sin or the greatness of your feeling of sinfulness. It’s enough that you acknowledge the sin that separates you from God—unbelief. Sin is the falling away of the heart from God. Without that feeling of sin, a person does not yearn for forgiveness, and there’s nothing for which the gospel could be the answer.
Apostle Peter once said to Jesus: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68,69). Christ is still found on earth. God’s kingdom is found in God’s congregation.
Author: Veli-Pekka Ottman
Image: iStock