Jesus Saves

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it [Matthew 16:24-25, a portion of the Gospel reading assigned for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year A].

The 29-year-old drove west along U.S. Hwy. 74. He was in no hurry; he’d allowed two hours for the trip from Gastonia that took just over one. Forest City lay 10 miles behind him. He had about 10 more miles before he’d reach Columbus, the sleepy county seat of Polk County. Traffic was quite light. That was, of course, normal in a county with fewer than 15,000 souls.

In his mind, he sketched out his two short Industrial Commission hearings scheduled that afternoon. Nothing out of the ordinary was expected. For four years—this was 1980—he’d represented NC textile mills (and their “comp” carriers), handling several hundred cases involving industrial injuries and brown lung (byssinosis). It wasn’t exciting but was he good at it. A year or two more of this type of work and he’d be made a partner. His life seemed pretty much planned out before him.

Then he saw it. He had just rounded a curve in a portion of the highway that narrowed to two lanes. Black painted letters had been sprayed on a flat rock face: “Jesus Saves.”

“That’s rural North Carolina for you,” he thought disgustedly to himself. “Do we have to wear our religion on our sleeves?”

Oh, he’d seen many signs like this before. There was, of course, the one on I-85 near Gaffney. It had neon lights. He’d noticed quite a few in his native Gaston County. He’d never given them much thought, but this one just around the bend near Columbus seemed different. Its letters seemed to move along with his eye as he passed it. “Jesus Saves.”

What was so offensive about that Polk County graphic artist and his work? The young man supposed it was the presumptuousness of the whole thing. The sign told anybody passing, whether you were in a modest Ford or a streaming Cadillac, that you needed saving. “How did he know that?”

More than that, the sign seemed to cry out to all who passed: “You aren’t happy. You may think you are, but something important is missing.” That’s, of course, a difficult thing to hear when you’ve convinced yourself that you’re doing fine, when you’ve tried so hard to be happy, when you’ve exerted such effort to construct some sort of inner peace. The sign, however, shouted out at him, “Ah, you will never make it.”

As he drove on toward his hearings, he thought to himself, “Why did it have to say ‘Jesus Saves?’ Why not just ‘God Saves?’”

One could pretend that “God” was something of a concept, an idea, an other-worldly phenomenon. But “Jesus”—using the man’s name put it plainly on a personal level. This man, Jesus, had hair and eyes. He had a smile. He likely had a soothing touch. He ate and laughed. He was real.

“Jesus Saves”—the young man thought of the two thieves crucified on the same hill that day with Jesus. One had hurled insults as the guards nailed Jesus to His cross, “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us” [Luke 23:39]. That condemned man’s emphasis had no doubt been on “us.” The other—the “good” thief—had said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” [Luke 23:42]. The young lawyer thought to himself, “Was there all that much difference between the statements of the two condemned? Or was it just that one sounded sincere and self-effacing?” The young man slowed as he entered the town limits of Columbus. He sighed and thought, “Which of the two are you?”

“Jesus Saves”—When the naked Jesus—they’d taken away his clothing by then—told the second thief that he would be with Jesus in Paradise that very day, wasn’t the Messiah’s statement just as presumptuous as that crafted on the rock by the Polk County man with his can of black spray paint? Could someone the likes of Jesus—homeless, penniless, scorned, convicted, condemned, and crucified—save anyone? Could He save me? Presumptuous, perhaps even preposterous, but could “Jesus Saves” also be true?

Forty-three years after his trip to Columbus, a much older man entered the men’s room of an old, beat-up convenience store near Rougemont. There on the wall, amongst the four-letter words and obscenities, was a message that had been hastily scribbled with a Sharpie: “Jesus Saves.”