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Watch Out! Sometimes we need a massive dose of shock and awe in order to jolt us back into reality, especially when things aren't going well. Along these lines, Dacher Keltner's book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, seeks to help us recover from the sleepy, predictable rhythms of everyday life in the 21st century by calling attention to awe right in our midst. For Keltner, you don't have to travel to the Louvre or the Himalayas to experience awe; actually, it's as close as that hibiscus on the patio or the first smile of a newborn. As a professor at UC Berkeley, Keltner travels widely, exploring how people all over the world experience awe along the lines of eight distinct domains: moral beauty, syncing with others (think dance here), nature (which he calls "wild awe"), music, the visuals arts ("sacred geometries," he calls them, especially film), spirituality, life and death. Each domain evokes, drawing us deeper and deeper into its mysteries. As Keltner sees it, awe is "the emotion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don't understand." Take death, for example. When my mother died, family and friends surrounded her as we heard the ominous death rattle caused by fluid accumulating in her throat and windpipe. And then, very suddenly, it all went silent; she went silent. The rattle left. She transitioned from this life. It was a profoundly sacred moment, a holy mystery, this loving servant once so full of radiant life now still, entirely. Later, in conversation with my younger brother Gary, I heard him speak of the enormous sense of awe that overwhelmed him in that precious moment. Same here. In moments like these time seems to stop, if only momentarily, allowing mystery the space it needs to linger in our hearts and minds, fueling holy curiosity and sacred imagination. In times like these, death's mystery sends chills throughout our bodies, summoning goose bumps. Mystery, by definition, defies tight, linear, logical explanations, especially for modern people like us, people who are, quite frankly, soul-challenged and starved for awe. I'm sure that while her doctor could explain in great detail exactly what was happening to Mom in those final moments, he could not adequately explain the rest of her journey. Near death experiences are, after all, near death experiences. As Mom shouted when she first saw Pop lying in his own casket, "Where is he?" Wouldn't you agree with me that we need more mystery in an Al world, more awe? Just think about all the thrillers and paranormal stuff on Netflix. People crave awe and mystery because deep down we know we really don't know everything there is to be known. Not even close. That's God's domain, which is why, again and again, we turn to him in faith for hope. Enter Paul's Epistle to the Romans. The year was A.D. 386. That summer, a man named Aurelius Augustinus - Augustine to us - a professor of rhetoric at Milan, "sat weeping in the garden of his friend Alypius, almost persuaded to begin a new life, yet lacking the resolution to break with the old" (F.F. Bruce, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, page 58). At that very moment he heard a child singing, Tolle lege! Tolle lege! ("Take up and read! Take up and read.") So Augustine picked up the scroll next to Alypius and read Romans 13:13b-14: "Not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh." "No further would I read," wrote Augustine in his Confession (3.9), "nor did I have any need. Instantly, at the end of this sentence, a clear light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished!" Awe! The results of Augustine's conversion, especially in the Western Christian World, are simply incalculable. He was and remains a prominent Christian leader who is widely read and studied to this very day. Scroll forward to the year 1515, when a young Augustinian monk named Martin Luther, a professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg, Germany, began a series of lectures on Paul's Epistle to the Romans. "I greatly longed to understand Paul's Epistle to the Romans," Luther wrote. "Nothing stood in the way but that one expression, 'the righteousness of God,' which I took to mean that God is righteous and deals righteously in punishing the unrighteous .. Night and day I pondered until ... I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness which, through grace and sheer mercy, he justifies us by faith. I thus felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise!" (cited in Bruce, p. 59). And in this way the door was opened to what later became known as the Protestant Reformation as, once more, the truth of God's saving mercies shone forth from the words of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. More awe! Later still - the year was 1738 - a man named John Wesley went unwillingly to a meeting in London, where the Preface to Luther's Commentary on Romans was being read, and later recorded in his journal: "About a quarter of nine, while he (the reader) was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. Felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken my sins away, even mine; and saved me from the law of sin and death" (cited from Wesley's journal in Bruce, p. 59). Likely more than any other, this experience led to the First Great Awakening in the late 18th century, and ultimately to the birth of untold numbers of churches here in the States. Still more awe! Thank God for Romans. Many years later (February 8, 2023), just down the road from Southern Indiana, yet another revival began as Zach Meerkreebs preached a sermon from Romans 12:9-21, which reads: "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor (literally, boil), serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do no curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (NIV) Meerkreebs, who grew up Jewish but later converted to Christianity, preached this sermon in Hughes Chapel at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky that day. He called it a "stinker" (but still, l'd like to study his content and style). When chapel was over, students remained. Confession ensued. President Kevin Brown sent out the following email: "There's worship happening in Hughes. You're welcome to join." What followed is hard to describe. I was in Texas during this revival but opened Google Maps and discovered the clogged red roads to Wilmore extended for miles beyond that tiny town as thousands came to experience revival. Participants flew in from as far away as South Korea. Estimates of 50,000 to 70,000 people came, with other reports topping out at well over 100,000 All in Wilmore, population 5,000. February 8, 2023. Less than three years ago in nearby Kentucky! The revival went on for sixteen days, spawning others and attracting students from various schools around the country. You can check out a timeline here and hear Meerkreebs sermon here. Remember, he told his wife it was a "stinker." What can I say? Paul shaped Augustine, and Augustine, Luther, and Luther, Wesley, and Wesley, Meerkreebs (Asbury is, after all, a Wesleyan university), all because of a single life-altering epistle written in the spring of A.D. 57 to a group of Christians whose fledgling churches in Rome Paul hadn't even visited. Awe upon awe upon awe upon awe. And all of it spawned from Romans! The point should be clear enough by now. As you read, study, digest and pray over God's saving mercies as these appear in Romans this week, Watch Out! Who knows what God will do this time? As F.F. Bruce noted in his commentary, "You have been warned!" Love you all. All Blessings, Neal
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