In the summer of 1979 I worked as a
counselor at Camp Rockmont near Asheville, NC. Having no previous experience
with camping I was thrown to the wolves, the dreaded 13 year olds, the veterans
of the Camp, which I dearly loved. Each morning we had a
devotional before breakfast, which I found challenging, to say the least. One morning we were awakened by an
announcement that the whole camp would gather in the Gym for a special
devotional time. Since my guys were perpetually late, except for food, we were
the last group to get there. The
only seats left were on the front row.
At some forsaken hour, I sat there wondering why there was such a hushed
tone in a room full of hundreds of boys.
Then I noticed a middle aged man walk in from the right. It was Billy Graham in person. I did not realize that he was friends
with the owner and lived just around the corner. Needless to say, we were all speechless.
Much taller than I expected, and a
handsome man, his eyes spoke volumes.
Some years later I had the privilege of meeting Professor Thomas F.
Torrance in his home. He had the
same eyes—apostolic eyes—the kind that stare into your soul. When that happens, you wither until the
light finds something ancient within you that is quickened. I cannot recall much of what Billy
Graham said, except for one statement.
He gathered his breath and stared straight at me, at least it felt like
it. With his Virginia accent he
thundered, “You shall know the Truth,
and the Truth shall set you
free.” My heart knew instantly
that the Lord himself was addressing me.
I did not have the understanding at the time to process what was
happening, and if I had, I would have probably run.
Nearly 35 years later things are
clearer. On that sleepy morning
near Asheville, through Billy Graham, the Lord answered my heart. This was the summer between my Junior
and Senior years at Ole Miss, and although I certainly had been having a
‘large’ time, I knew that there had to be more. Many nights, after the parties, I would walk in a field
behind my dorm and pray—cry is more like it. Now, at this moment, the Lord answered. “The answer is the Truth. It is the
Truth that you seek.” Of course the
answer begs another question, what then is the Truth? So through Billy Graham came the answer that then became a
new question, which turns out to be the question of my life. What is the Truth that sets us
free? And there was one other
thing, a final word. “You will know that you know the Truth when it sets you free.”
Jesus is the
Truth. Not Jesus alone, but Jesus
in his Father, and Jesus anointed in the Holy Spirit, and Jesus as the one in
and through and by and for whom all things are created and sustained. In his incarnation the Father’s Son and
Anointed One established his relationship—the relationship he already had with
us and with all creation—inside his own humanity. Submitting to our murder on the cross this Son established
his relationship with us in our sin and darkness.
He came to seek and to save that which
was lost. He found all of me,
every broken, shame-riddled fragment.
He found all of you, and all of us, in our sin, bound as we were in the
trauma of evil. Under the spell of
the wicked one, we rejected Jesus and damned him, cursing and mocking him in
our profound confusion. He
accepted us as we were. He bore
our scorn, and died in the affliction of evil’s bitter enmity as it was vented
through the world’s darkened heart.
Through submitting to us he made his way inside the headquarters of the
cruel one, the source of our blindness, sin and death, and hell. This is atonement. This is the Truth, Jesus himself inside
our darkness, finding and accepting us as we had become in the wickedness of
evil, loving and embracing us in our brokenness, to deliver us from what we had
become in the dark. And he was not
alone. He brought his Father and
the Holy Spirit with him.
Now Jesus bears our pain in himself as
he sits face to face with his Father in the abounding life that is the Holy
Spirit. Now, inside the dastardly
confusion that has captivated our minds and hearts, Jesus summons us in the
Holy Spirit to break our agreements with evil and to agree with him about who
we are, to take sides with him against our own way of thinking, and to live in
the freedom of the Holy Spirit’s witness inside our own souls.
So, for me to return to Asheville,
North Carolina, after all these years, and to speak with Paul Young and John
MacMurray at the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove, was a monumental
moment in my life. Personally speaking, The Open Table Conference turned out to
be a blessing beyond my wildest dreams. It was a gathering of hungry sisters
and brothers from around the country, and even from the Motherland. I have never experienced such a
beautiful, clear, sustained vision of Jesus Christ in my life. Tears and hope, life, freedom and
healing rose in us all like an oasis as conversations cascaded around our meals
and walks and debriefings. There
was sadness, as we had time to share our hurts, and I am sure from some of the
questions that there were a few feathers ruffled. Jesus has a way of doing that. One lady said to me, “Finally, I have a gospel that is
actually good news to share.”
Another person said, “I hope this is true; if it is not it will be the
greatest disappointment in the universe.”
I assured him that Jesus is the Truth, and that our issue is not that we
have overestimated Jesus Christ.
He is the One who has found us in the great darkness, embraced us,
included us in his life with his Father, and in his anointing in the Holy
Spirit, and he is setting us free by revealing the Truth in the Holy Spirit.
Thank you John MacMurray for your
vision, and for your courage, and for making this Open Table Conference
happen. It proved to be a
quickening in the Holy Spirit in the vision of Jesus, the Truth. We had a ‘large’ time. And, as my friend David Kowalick likes
to say, ‘the best is yet to be.’ I
cannot wait for Hawaii. But first
comes the event of the year, my daughter Laura’s wedding on September 21st. Speaking of ‘large’ times.
