The word salvation, a key term for understanding the Christian worldview, derives from the Latin word salus, which means healthy and sound, in turn deriving from the Greek holus, which means whole. The Christian Gospel, as a message of salvation, can also be understood as a message of healing, one that brings wholeness to our lives.
The Gospel, or Good News, is addressed to us in our cosmic woundedness, proclaiming the Way wherein we can be healed and come to wholeness once again. This is by undergoing a total change of heart and mind, a metanoia wherein we experience a renovation of our being as we are reconciling with God, with our true selves, with our fellow human beings, and with the whole of creation.
“Understood this way, we can see how the Buddhist expression of the human predicament in terms of duhka, that is, as a situation that is dis-located, dis-eased, out of step, or out of touch with itself, is in basic resonance and in agreement with the Christian understanding of cosmic woundedness.”
—- From Healing Breath: Zen Spirituality for a Wounded Earth” by Ruben L.F. Habito. He spent nearly 20 years in Japan where he did Zen koan training and is now resident Zen Teacher at the Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas. A former Roman Catholic priest, he also teaches world religions and spiritualities at Perkins School of Theology where jitterbugger here obtained his Master of Divinity.
I like to think of salvation in terms of its healing power with Christ as the great Physician of souls. We are all broken people living in a messy, broken, noisy and violent world. We all stand in need of God’s saving grace, love and mercy and God comes to heal us in all our brokenness.
United Methodist Bishop Scott Jones, a former Perkins professor, writes in his book United Methodist Doctrine, that in Wesley’s scheme of salvation, “genuine religion is best understood as the therapy of the soul. Christianity is the way in which God is transforming God’s creation away from its sin and restoring the original God present in the first creation. This means changing of individuals and of entire social systems.”
“A common mistake about salvation is to relate it only to life after death,” Jones wrote. {Wesley’s Sermons} emphasize that salvation is a present reality, not merely something acheived after death.”
We’re all wounded, all broken, all “dis-eased,” all standing in need of God’s grace and healing power–all in need of renovation and restoration to original blessing.
Before there was original sin, there was original blessing.
