"Saved"

We don’t know if we’ll make it,

That’s what they said to me,

As they their horses saddled,

Prepared soon gone to be.

But someone’s gotta do it,

And we will do our best,

To go and get some rescue,

Though it will be a test.

And then at once they left me,

With a friend to give me care,

Disappeared into the wilderness,

As we sat and stared.

We had a real good fire,

And food enough to eat,

But both my legs were broken,

We knew we might be beat.

‘Cause the blizzard it was comin’,

And the snow already there,

Just no way of knowin’,

If the weather we could bear.

Sometime late that evenin’,

Huddled in our tent,

Wind was blowing loudly,

And tree limbs heavy bent.

I thought when I awakened,

That I had heard a train,

But it was just the whistle,

Of blizzard’s wind insane.

Could I get any colder,

I thought there was no way,

And then I slowly wakened,

To a clear, bright mountain day.

And long about the midday,

We heard a distant sound,

The whirring of a motor,

A ‘copter on the ground.

Air-lifted me to safety,

And my life surely saved,

By friends who never faltered,

Their duty’s call obeyed.

One who stayed to help me,

And two who went for aid,

I’ll always be thankful,

For the sacrifice they made.

And this is just what Jesus,

Has showed me He has done,

To come and make a rescue,

When we were wounded, done.

He sacrificed His own life,

Gave HImself so we,

Could have His full salvation,

And heal our injury.

“By His wounds you are healed…” (1 Peter 2:24, NLT)

The prophet Isaiah made a healing prediction. When Messiah comes He will bring healing through His own wounds. How strange this must have sounded to those who heard it? How can a wound bring healing? They could not know that Isaiah was predicting what would happen centuries later when Jesus was scourged and crucified. His wounds and death became the means by which God’s judgment against sin was eternally satisfied and our personal sins pardoned. We are offered the rescue that only grace could provide, the healing made possible by Jesus’ shed blood. When you look at it that way, the mental and spiritual light bulbs come on for a lot of us. We thought God was angry but He wasn’t. We thought God wanted to shame and make us feel guilty, but ultimately He doesn’t. We thought God was threatening us with hell, when He was really offering His love. He was trying to heal us all along. Be healed, in Jesus’ name.

Lord, give us the healing and rescue offered through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name.

Art by Grant Redden, grantredden.com. Used by permission. Thanks, Grant, and God bless you.