Revival!
Grace to you and peace from God our Creator, from our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and from our Sustainer, the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A revival! A Christian revival! Many are calling it the first great American Christian revival of the 21st century. That’s right – a massive Christian revival like we haven’t seen in decades – in centuries! (Grant it – a revival may be a bit outside the box for us Lutherans. Revivals have not, for the most part, been part of our tradition or history.)
What is a Christian revival? It is characterized by spontaneous long-lasting episodes of worship, prayer, music and rousing preaching, and the first revival, called the First Great Awakening actually happened here in New England back in the 1700’s when people flocked to hear the preaching of Jonathon Edwards and others. Later revivals of the 20th century happened in tents all across the south and midwest and were characterized by, for example, Pentecostals praying in tongues and people being miraculously healed.
So let me tell you about the massive revival that just happened. It began on February 8 at a small Christian college in Wilmore, Kentucky called Asbury University. Asbury which also has a seminary on its campus is rooted in the Methodist and Wesleyan tradition. There, a few dozen students lingered after an ordinary morning chapel service to continue singing and praying. Word about the spontaneous gathering spread on campus, and by evening students were dragging their mattresses into the chapel to spend the night. Within days, their enthusiasm had exploded into a national event.
Word got out and it is estimated that over the next two weeks more than 50,000 people from all over the country descended upon the tiny town of Wilmore, population- 6000 people!
From Psalm 32: “Therefore all the faithful will make their prayers to you in time of trouble; when the great waters overflow, they shall not reach them. You are my hiding place; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go…”
What’s remarkable about this two-week revival to which 50,000 people came to participate in non-stop praying, singing, and preaching was that it was inspired, driven and led by young people – specifically Generation Z – roughly those in their late teens to late 20’s, and, for the most part, this revival attracted the same generation of young people. And this is the generation of young people in our country for whom many have lost faith in organized religion – with a recent study finding that 43% of adults under the age of 30 say they never attend religious services.
Here’s what Kevin Brown, the president of Asbury said of the experience: “There’s a deep hunger born of this trenchant or deep dissatisfaction and disillusionment with what has been handed to the younger generation, and I think they’re just raising their gaze to higher things.”
Madison Pierce, a student at Asbury seminary who happens to be gay said this, The Asbury revival is “marked by overwhelming peace for a generation marked by anxiety. It’s marked by joy for a generation marked by suicidal ideation. It’s marked by humility for a generation traumatized by the abuse of religious power.”
Alison Perfater, the Asbury student body president referred to the “division and the political unrest of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic. She said, “We were due for a breaking point, but instead of it being a horrible breaking point, it – the revival – was peaceful and sweet.”
Margaret Feinberg who had travelled all the way from Park City, Utah to Wilmore, Kentucky once she heard about the revival said this, “It doesn’t feel like America in 2023 in here. It just melts away.” She said in the worship space both contemporary songs and traditional, familiar hymns were being sung like, “It is Well With My Soul.” She also said, “We’ve been beat up by life – we all have been beat up over the last few years. Everyone is looking for healing.”
In the very beginning God expected one thing of us, and God makes it quite plain and clear in that first verse from today’s reading from Genesis. It goes like this: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” Now, I’m going to get a little wonky here and be laser-focused on the word, “till”. The word “till” comes from the Hebrew word “avad” and it actually occurs hundreds of times in the Old Testament. Now here in this context it makes sense that “till” or “avad” is the equivalent of something like plowing or digging up the ground, but it turns out that in this case it is the only one of hundreds of uses of that word where it means something like plowing or digging up the dirt. Everywhere else this word is used, it means something like – to serve, to care for, to tend to, to nurture.
So God puts Adam and Eve in charge of the garden and tells them to not just to plow it or dig it but to actually serve the land, care for all creation, tend to all living things, nurture one another and all God’s creatures. Well, we all know how that turned out, don’t we? Once Adam and Eve made the choice to step out of their wheelhouse, to stray away from what God asked them to do, they were granted to the gift of choice – the choice of whether or not to till the garden. The choice of whether or not to care for the earth. The choice of whether or not to care for one another, to nurture and love each other. It’s our choice – and look, for example – at how we’ve done in caring for planet earth. It’s pretty much a miserable failure. Look at how we’ve done in caring for an entire generation of young people like, for example, Generation Z who were at the core of this old-fashioned revival.
As the first great American revival of the 21st century at tiny Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky that attracted over 50,000 people from all over the country, the evidence suggests we’ve not done such a good job with younger generations. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to “avad” it, to serve, care for, nurture, tend, love.” What choices did we make to stray so far from God’s purpose for us?
We are wandering around in the desert of the season of Lent. In this desert while it is tempting to avoid reality, while it is tempting to deny truth, while it is tempting to run away from God, we are at the same time invited to walk through a new, open door. Listen to the psalmist again from Psalm 32: ‘Happy are those whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sin is put away! Happy are they to whom the Lord imputes no guilt, and in whose spirit there is no guile!” That’s the promise. There’s the hope for us But listen more to the psalmist: “While I hid my tongue (while I ran away from you), my bones withered away, because of my groaning, complaining all day long…Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and did not conceal my guilt. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.’ Then you forgave me the guilt of my sin.”
Twenty-five year-old Carissa Fender described an unusual calmness when she entered the chapel as Asbury with her husband and 15-month-old daughter. She said this, “I was just overwhelmed with our own personal stuff, and it was like a peace came over me. I can cry and give God everything, and this is a safe space.”
But being close to God, being close to Jesus was not a safe space for Satan, as we hear in our gospel text for this morning. Jesus was so done with Satan. Jesus was so over Satan’s silly and useless and dangerous temptations. Finally, exasperated, Jesus threw up his hands and said, “Away with you Satan!” Get away from me. Be on your way. Disappear. For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’” And the devil left him, and do you notice what happens next? It’s so cool! We hear that “suddenly angels came and waited on Jesus.” Angels came and waited on Jesus!
That’s what I hope and pray it’s like for you when you come here to this sacred space to worship the Lord your God – that you feel the angels coming to you and waiting on you – here in this place right now! That’s what I hope and pray it’s like for you when you express with great joy as the psalmist sung: “Happy are they whose transgression are forgiven, and whose sin is put away.”
That’s what I hope and pray it was like for those 50,000 or so people in Wilmore, Kentucky many of whom felt an overwhelming sense of peace. The angels surely were surrounding them.
And my final hope and prayer this morning is that those angels that surround you right now will go with you out of this place to care for you and protect you, and you will share those beautiful angels with others whom you serve. Share those angels with those who need “avad”, with those who need nurture, with those who need tending, with whole generations of God’s children who need of God’s love. Amen.
Information about the revival comes from The New York Times and The Christian Century.