I did an internet search for “heartwarming stories of rescue” and got a shock!
Yesterday I read a local news story about a football team that saved the life of a drowning man, and I wanted to find a few more examples of rescues for today’s devotional.
But what I found absolutely blew my mind.
I never would have guessed it, but my search for rescue stories delivered page after page of animal rescues, animal adoptions and similar animal stories. It took an awful lot of scrolling before I got to an article related to people.
Now don’t get me wrong. I love dogs and can even tolerate the occasional cat. (Some of them can even tolerate me.) And surely rescuing them is laudable. I just found it fascinating that there were so MANY stories of animal rescues presented and so FEW about people.
Today’s verse says CARRY ONE ANOTHER’S BURDENS, AND IN THIS WAY YOU WILL FULFILL THE LAW OF CHRIST.
The Law of Christ can be summed up in one word – LOVE. The only instruction Jesus ever framed as a commandment was when He told us that we were to love one another as He has loved us. WWJD – What Would Jesus Do – used to be all the rage some time ago. T-shirts, bumper stickers, bracelets and the like were everywhere. The WWJD fad has mostly passed, but not His commandment to LOVE. Often that love requires sacrifice.
A few days ago a couple of football teams playing a match at a local park had their game interrupted by a car driving into a nearby pond. They sprung into action to save the driver’s life before the car could sink. As Justin Johnson rushed towards the car with with his teammates and opponents to help, he recalls thinking, “Save him. Honestly, just save him.” Here’s the issue – the driver didn’t want to be saved. He’d rolled up the windows and locked the doors before deliberately driving into the pond, intending to end his life.
Unable to pry the windows or doors open, someone somehow climbed through an opening in the trunk and opened the driver’s door so that Johnson and others could pull the driver out. Johnson said, “He didn’t wanna come out. He had a hold of that steering wheel, so we were just sitting there fighting. He was telling us to let him go, but we just couldn’t let that happen.” They were finally able to pull the man from the car to the safety of the shore where they waited together until EMS arrived.
CARRY ONE ANOTHER’S BURDENS, AND IN THIS WAY YOU WILL FULFILL THE LAW OF CHRIST
Those men loved well. They stepped in and rescued someone in desperate need; someone who’s problems went well beyond the sinking car in which he sat. He needed help he didn’t want. But our heroes weren’t deterred by his protests.
When you stop and think about it, there’s an awful lot that the rescuers ignored. They ignored their game. Thirty seconds before the car plunged into the water I’m sure that the score was a major consideration; but a life in the balance changed that. They ignored their clothes. The cost of their footwear and uniforms wasn’t a consideration, a life in the balance changed that. They ignored the dangers of a sinking car and potential injury. Athletes typically have to be careful to avoid injuries, but a life in the balance overrode those concerns. Even a life that didn’t want to be saved.
All lives matter, even lives of drivers in sinking cars who don’t think their life is worth saving. Perhaps especially those lives. Among the things these rescuers ignored was whether this man’s skin color matched theirs, what his net worth was, where he called home, whether or not he was in this country legally, and any number of things that may have been considered important before the car hit the water. A life in the balance changes everything. Even a life that doesn’t want to be saved.
CARRY ONE ANOTHER’S BURDENS, AND IN THIS WAY YOU WILL FULFILL THE LAW OF CHRIST
It’s a great lesson for followers of Jesus, too. Sometimes the people who most need to be saved grip the wheel, lock the doors and insist you leave them alone as they drive into the lake.
But we can’t do that. Jesus would never stand there and watch the car sink, He’d be heading into the lake for the rescue. If we are followers of Jesus, we need to go where He is going. Because THAT’S the kind of love Jesus gave. THAT’S the kind of love He is calling us to. There are lives in the balance all around us, and we are the rescuers. Not everyone who needs to be rescued is sitting in a sinking car. Some of them are serving your coffee, checking your groceries, living next door or even sleeping on the sidewalk downtown. Not everyone who needs to be rescued wants to be rescued. Some don’t even know they need to be rescued. But rescuing all of them is what we are called to do as we follow Jesus.
Because a life in the balance changes everything.
