More Than a Rescue, We Need a Resurrection

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media] 

            Like some of you, I grew up in an old church adorned with stained glass windows and wooden pews. The kind of church you might see in movies or on TV. My childhood church first organized in September of 1879, almost 130 years ago, and we worshiped every Sunday morning and evening with an organ, hymns (songs), and a pastor who wore a long robe. At that church we often sang a song called “It is Well with My Soul,” which has become one of those long-enduring songs of the faith, perhaps because of its haunting beauty, but certainly also because of the history behind the song itself.

            “It is Well with My Soul” was written by Horatio Spafford in 1876, only three years before my childhood church started worshipping. I imagine them singing that song when it was first released, as we might sing a United or Elevation Worship song, standing to sing, perhaps without instrumental accompaniment. The words echo through the wooden church structure in careful harmony.

Spafford, the song-writer, suffered through immense pain in his life, too much pain for most of us to understand. His 2-year-old child died in the mid-1800s, and then he lost his fortune in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Later, while crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the ship carrying his wife and four daughters sank, and all four of his daughters drowned at sea. Only his wife survived. It was in that terrible place, as Horatio Spafford crossed the Atlantic by himself, traveling to meet his wife, having five children now deceased and his business in ruins, that Spafford wrote the famous words of “It is Well with my Soul.” Some of the most memorable lines for me are these:

            “And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,

            The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;

            The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,

            Even so, it is well with my soul.”

Legend has it that Spafford wrote the lyrics to the hymn while traveling over the same spot where the ship carrying his wife and daughters sank, and both the original manuscript of the song and Spafford’s personal writings still exist today: “On Thursday last we passed over the spot where she went down in mid-ocean, the water three miles deep. But I do not think of our dear ones there. They are safe, folded, the dear lambs, and there, before long, shall we be too. In the meantime, thanks to God, we have an opportunity to serve and praise him for his love and mercy to us and ours. I will praise him while I have by being. May we each one arise, leave all, and follow him.”

            What I find most remarkable about both the hymn and Spafford’s personal writing is the attention to the need for a resurrection. Perhaps he, more than almost any of us, understood the need not for a rescuer, but for a death and resurrection. After all, Spafford eventually lost 6 of his children, and what could a rescue offer to him? I think about these families living in the late 1800s, before the medical intervention we now enjoy and I think, what good would a rescue be now to families who already buried their children? No, what these Christians realized is that they didn’t need a rescuer, they needed a resurrection.

            Probably one of the most significant differences between Spafford and me is that Spafford clearly attended carefully, every single day, to his faith. It has become too easy for me, in my modern, busy, convenient life, to allow my faith life to cruise on autopilot for a day. Or a week. Or a month. But Stafford calls us to reflect on God’s mercy even in this time of great suffering, invoking biblical language of walking by faith rather than by sight, and of dying to ourselves in order to follow after Christ. I can’t think of too many times that I willingly died to myself in this past week, which probably means that I’m still trying to be the rescuer of my own life, rather than acknowledging my need for a resurrection.

            At bedtimes my kids will sometimes talk about death. They talk about how they don’t want to die, and how they certainly don’t want people they love to die. I don’t want any of us to die, either, but I do understand more clearly now, as an adult, the language of faith becoming sight, and the peace that will come with the true resurrection. There are so many patterns and behaviors that I know I should lay down, and yet, they continue to rule over me. And so my prayer for all of us is Spafford’s prayer: That we may recognize our need for a resurrection, that one day our faith will become sight, and that in the meantime, we will leave behind all and follow after Christ.