Search and Rescue

In August of 1957 four climbers—two Italians and two Germans—were climbing the 6,000 foot near-vertical North Face in the Swiss Alps. The two German climbers disappeared and were never heard from again. The two Italian climbers, exhausted and dying, were stuck on two narrow ledges a thousand feet below the summit. The Swiss Alpine Club forbade rescue attempts in this area (it was just too dangerous), but a small group of Swiss climbers decided to launch a private rescue effort to save the Italians.

So they carefully lowered a climber named Alfred Hellepart down the 6,000 foot North Face. They suspended Hellepart on a cable a fraction of an inch thick as they lowered him into the abyss. Here’s how Hellepart described the rescue in his own words:

“As I was lowered down the summit my comrades on top grew further and further distant, until they disappeared from sight. At this moment I felt an indescribable aloneness. Then for the first time I peered down the abyss of the North Face of the Eiger. The terror of the sight robbed me of breath. The brooding blackness of the Face, falling away in almost endless expanse beneath me, made me look with awful longing to the thin cable disappearing about me in the mist. I was a tiny human being dangling in space between heaven and hell. The sole relief from terror was my mission to save the climber below.” Hellepart managed to rescue one of the climbers by strapping him on his back and both were lifted out to safety. [1]

That is the heart of the Gospel story. We were trapped, but in the person and presence of Jesus, God lowered himself into the abyss of our sin and suffering. In Jesus, God became “a tiny human being dangling between heaven and hell.” He did it to save the people trapped below—you and me.

The account of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10 is a story of search and rescue. At first glance it may seem like a series of chance events—Jesus was passing through Jericho and a rich tax collector climbed a tree to catch a glimpse of the miracle-working teacher. But this encounter with Jesus was not a coincidence. At the end of the narrative, Luke deliberately included Jesus’ words to Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost”.

Thus, the Gospel is much more radical than just another religion telling us how to be good in our own power. It tells us the story of God’s risky, costly, sacrificial rescue effort on our behavior. Our response should be a desire to help rescue others entrapped in sin. As it turns out those rescued from sin are best able to rescue those in sin. –DM.

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[1] James R. Edwards, Is Jesus the Only Savior?  (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005), pp. 160-161