The Ordination from Above
Becoming a Reverend took one night; experiencing God's power took much longer.
Walter Wangerin
October 1, 1983
Walt Wangerin originally delivered "The Ordination from Above" as an address to graduating seminarians.
My face burned when I was ordained. This is historical truth, no image, nor metaphor: this face became bright red and burned.
I suppose the people might have said, "Walt's excited. Look at him blush." It was the end of my two year's education at Redeemer Church in Evansville under a man named David Wacker. That church had been my school, that man my teacher, and here was the ceremony of endings and beginnings, with music and preaching, lights, flowers, rites, noise, my seat center front, my self the single purpose of the gathering. "Walt's excited. … "
But I knew my facial fire was more than a blush. Rather, the burning came of this: for once in my long and vigorous struggle with the Lord Jesus Christ, the struggle itself had ceased; for a moment the relationship had reached a certain purity. At that instant my faith was not being torn between yes-and-no, nor my calling torn between yes-and-no, as both had been, bloodily, for years. My Lord was both mine and Lord; my calling exquisitely clear; my face bright red. For YES and YES ALONE demands its manifestation and had it in the heat of my countenance.
My faith, you see, was the flame in my face.
And the burning came of this: I sat in the midst of a people with whom I had learned and laughed, talked, failed, and cried; a people against whom I had sinned, from whom experienced forgiveness, among whom had roared, lived, and loved. And in that instant our fellowship had reached a certain purity, a quiescence of joy. There stood Joselyn Fields- a woman of deep, dark, penetrable skin and flashing white eyes-directing the choir in "Isaiah, Mighty Seer in Days of Old." By her ...
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