Rescue Mission

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   I'm sure most if not all of you by now have been following the story of the rescue of the downed American weapons systems officer (WSO) over the weekend. According to news reports, an F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over SW Iran on Friday, leading to the pilot and WSO ejecting. The pilot was extracted a few hours later, but the WSO had to evade detection for nearly two days before he could be located and a rescue attempt made. Early Sunday morning a combat search and rescue (CSAR) team was able to make contact with the Air Force officer and successfully bring him out.

   In watching one former Navy pilot describing the rescue attempt, I heard him relate what one of his instructors said about CSAR efforts in Vietnam; he said that for every pilot recovered, on average two rescue personnel were killed. This instructor exhorted these new naval officers to be the type of person worth saving.

   This weekend we celebrated the greatest rescue effort of all time. Jesus Christ came into the world to rescue humanity from the penalty, power, and, ultimately, the presence of sin and death. In the opening of his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes in Galatians 1:3-5, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forevermore. Amen." The thing that is most amazing about this is that Christ did not come to rescue people who were "worth saving." Paul writes elsewhere, in Romans 5:6-8, "For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for a good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrated His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

   As incredible as the rescue over the weekend was, let us rejoice that we have been the beneficiaries of an infinitely greater rescue. God has rescued us (people who are by nature rebels against Him) and reconciled us to Himself. Let us be passionate ambassadors of this mission so that others may be rescued as well.