Aldersgate Day

Possibly the most famous words ever penned by John Wesley (1703–1791), the founder of the Methodist movement, were recorded in his journal for May 24, 1738. A priest in the Church of England, he had been raised in a Christian home and had followed his father and older brother into the priesthood.
However, there was something lacking in his Christian experience, and one evening, he went to a lay-led religious gathering in London. He found the program to center on a reading of Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. “About a quarter before nine,” Wesley later recounted, “while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

Often confused with a conversion experience, Wesley, already a Christian, had in fact experienced an enlightenment that gave him confidence and a sense of assurance of his salvation. The movement he founded would preach that all believers could share that same sense of confidence, a belief embodied in a popular hymn written by the blind Methodist songwriter Fannie J. Crosby that harks back to Wesley’s account.

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
(The Methodist Hymnal. Nashville et al. The Methodist Publishing House, 1939, 238)

Through the years since Wesley’s death, Methodists have recognized May 24 as the day Wesley experienced the assurance of his salvation. In the last generation, American Methodists have collapsed Aldersgate Day into a more general reflection on the history of the Methodist movement. In 2004, the General Conference, the highest legislative body in the United Methodist Church, also designated May 24 as Heritage Day and encouraged Methodists to celebrate the Sunday prior to May 24 as either Heritage Day, Aldersgate Sunday, or a combination thereof.

The celebration of Aldersgate Sunday is encouraged but not mandated by the church, and local congregations may or may not commemorate it from one year to the next. Aldersgate Day/Sunday is also celebrated by Methodists in England where Wesley lived most of his life.

References
Clark, Elmer T., ed. What Happened at Aldersgate. Nashville, TN: Methodist Publishing House, 1938. Green, V. H. H. John Wesley. New York: University Press of America, 1987. Heitzenrater, Richard P. Wesley and the People Called Methodists. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995. Wesley His Own Biographer: Selections from the Journals of the Rev. John Wesley with Numerous Illustrations and the Original Account of His Death. London: C. H. Kelly, 1891

Aldersgate Day 2019-11-06T00:20:00-08:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: mc