Craig Clouston

 

The Greatest Rescue in History

December 13

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…that the world through Him might be saved.

John: 16, 17

Recently, Time Magazine published their ‘Top Ten Miraculous Rescues’. ‘Sully Sullenberger’s’ heroic landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River topped the list. Next was ‘Baby Jessica’s’ two-and-a-half day ordeal stuck in a Midland, Texas well followed by, ‘The Chinese Mine Miracle’ in which one hundred fifteen miners were saved from drowning hundreds of feet below ground.

From the rescue of the Uruguayan rugby team in the crash of Air Force flight 571, to the rescue of 33 of 59 sailors trapped in the sunken submarine U.S.S. Squalus in 1939, to the nine miners who were rescued after seventy-seven hours in the flooded tunnels of the Que Creek, Pennsylvania mine, the list of harrowing rescues were shared in detail.

The 1945 rescue of 500 Japanese POW’s in the Philippines was a tribute the tenacious spirit of US Army Rangers and Filipino guerrilla forces who liberated them in spite of overwhelming odds.

The horrible 7.0 earthquake in Haiti showcased the best qualities in humanity as people from around the world converged on Port-Au-Prince, to sift through the rubble, looking for survivors.

Each of these events is deserving of recognition, as they illustrate the hope found in people reaching out to those in need, regardless of color, ethnicity, or station.

Surprisingly, Time then departed the human factor listing number ten as NASA’s saving of the Hubble Telescope in 2009.

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Sadly, there was a glaring oversight from this list. Given that Time’s 1999 ‘Person of the Century’ poll, where Jesus Christ led all other submissions combined, with 42% of the over 900,000 votes, you would think Jesus might have at least gotten an ‘Honorable Mention’.

So, why did the list include an inanimate object while excluding the Greatest Rescue in history? Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

In truth the Christian Community has allowed evil to propagate, while silently remaining in their sequestered bubbles. Without opposition, Jesus Christ, and what He did to rescue us, has been relegated to the dusty realms of the almost forgotten.

I believe that good men can also, if they so choose, reverse this trend. But it requires remaining silent no longer.

Prayer

“Thank You Father God, for Your Son, Jesus, who rescued me from eternal damnation. May I never forget or exclude Your loving sacrifice from my life. Amen.”