Yesterday’s blog included a line from Augustine:

God’s grace always seems to startle the religious.

I’m reminded of something Nicky Cruz said at astronaut Jim Irwin’s memorial service. First, the backstory of Nicky – here are some snippets from a Wikipedia article:

David Wilkerson served as a pastor in small churches until he saw a photograph in Life Magazine in early 1958 of seven teenagers who were members of gangs in New York…He later wrote that he felt the Holy Spirit move him with compassion and was drawn to go to New York, in order to preach to them… He began a street ministry to young drug addicts and gang members, which he continued into the 1960s…He founded Teen Challenge in 1958, an evangelical Christian addiction recovery program in Brooklyn…Wilkerson gained national recognition after he co-authored the book The Cross and the Switchblade in 1962 about his street ministry… In the book, Wilkerson tells of the conversion of gang member Nicky Cruz who later became an evangelist himself and wrote the autobiographical Run Baby Run.

I read Cross and the Switchblade soon after it came out so it’s a story I’ve been aware of for a long time. In the 1990s, when I lived in Colorado Springs, both Nicky and Jim Irwin lived within a mile of my house, and I saw Nicky from time to time when we were both out jogging. I can’t say that I knew either of them personally.

Jim Irwin was an astronaut, lunar module pilot of Apollo 15, and the eighth person to walk on the moon, back in 1971. Jim was raised in a Christian home but only became a strong believer after his moon mission. He died of a heart attack in 1991. Because I was doing some work for the US Space Foundation at the time, I was able to attend his memorial service, preached by his friend Nicky Cruz. I’ll never forget what Nicky said. It went something like this:

The miracle is not that I was saved by grace. I was a Puerto Rican street kid. I’ve killed people in gang warfare. I understand grace. I needed grace. The miracle is that Jim Irwin, a good, white Baptist kid from Pittsburgh, understood grace.

He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3.5 – 7, NIV)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2.8, 9, NIV)