One Sunday last fall, I witnessed two events, stark in their contrast but sharing something significant.
I worshiped that morning at the Cadet Chapel of the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.
“Chapel” is dramatically underdescriptive of the massive Protestant cathedral, sculpted of stone and overlooking the verdant Hudson River valley. As a worshiper, you’re surrounded by stained-glass reminders of Christian history-images of Christ and the disciples, plus saints throughout the centuries.
Above the chancel, light filtered through the glass, spelling out the noble words of military tradition: Duty. Honor. Country.
The service began with the Cadet Choir proceeding down the center aisle as the congregation sang, “I love your kingdom, Lord, / the house of your abode, / the church our blest Redeemer saved / with his own precious blood. “
Then followed a hymn, a prayer of confession, The Lord’s Prayer, a reading of Hebrews 4:12-16, and a solo, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path,” which led into my reason for being there.
I serve as a board member of the American Tract Society, which for 123 years has given Bibles to first-year cadets. After the Presentation of the Plebe Bible, we were ready for the sermon. And Chaplain Richard Camp did not disappoint.
“Rally! Rally! Rally!” he began, referring to the fall tradition at West Point by which any cadet, anywhere on campus, will shout those words to start a noisy and impromptu pep rally for the football team. The rallies take place during unscheduled parts of the day. And, as Chaplain Camp reported humorously, they may even happen after taps, in at least one case, quite a while after taps and atop the roof of the Camps’ home!
He went on to describe the task, likewise, of Christians: to stir up “enthusiasm” in the original sense of that word-being filled with passion for God.
For this sermon, Chaplain Camp had the home-field advantage, and he made the most of his setting to drive home the gospel.
Just a few hours and several miles down the Hudson later, I found myself in a decidedly different environment, downtown Manhattan, for what was billed “An Afternoon in Central Park with Billy Graham.”
Whatever home-field advantage the gospel may have had in the morning was gone that afternoon.
New York City, with its 500,000 registered heroin addicts and 2,245 homicide victims in 1990, is hardly a natural worship center.
Central Park is a marketplace of competing ideologies. As I walked to the event, leaflets were thrust into my hands by people pushing environmental awareness, mysticism, baptismal regeneration, and militant Calvinism (a tract called, “The Myth of Free Will”).
– A small army of police officers and paramedics were stationed around the park. Hot dog, ice cream, and t-shirt vendors had set up shop.
I wondered what it would be like to preach the gospel amid the competing voices.
The Graham organization had worked hard to spread word about the event. Promotional brochures had been distributed in sixteen languages. Large ads in newspapers proclaimed, YOU RE BORN. YOU SUFFER. YOU DIE. FORTUNATELY, THERE 5 A LOOPHOLE. They went on to invite people to hear Billy Graham’s message of hope.
Prominent New Yorkers, including John Cardinal O’Connor and Mayor
David Dinkins, endorsed the event. Jewish leaders, while not endorsing it, at least agreed not to protest it.
Various ethnic radio stations agreed to broadcast the event live, providing simultaneous translation in Korean, Spanish, and three Chinese dialects.
The event itself reflected the multicultural milieu. Guests as diverse as Johnny Cash, The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, Sandi Patti, The Korean Children’s Choir, Nicky Cruz, and Cathy Lee Gifford took part before Billy Graham took the podium to speak to 250,000 people, some sitting on the lawn, some standing, some just milling around.
His message was characteristically simple, based on John 3:16. “People get increasingly irritable and pushy in their effort to guard their own turf,” he said. “There’s little space for others, let alone God. To be without God in New York is to be terribly lonely.”
In contrast, he offered something that’s in short supply these days. Hope. Based on an eternal relationship with God.
As I walked away from that event, I couldn’t help but contrast the polished reverence I’d experienced in the morning with the gospel amid the chaos I’d seen in the afternoon. Two more different settings would be hard to imagine.
Yet in each, there came a moment when it was time to pull together all that was happening, to connect the external setting with the interior of the soul, to give the public event meaning for private individuals.
And at the climactic moment of each event, it was not music or drama or group therapy or video we wanted. The situation called for a word, the spoken Word, the time-tested Word, simply articulated by one person.
In short, the common element was good preaching.
I walked away convinced anew that the power of preaching is unsurpassed for applying God’s truth to our deepest needs.
Marshall Shelley is editor of LEADERSHIP.
Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
