The beginning of the year starts with some lost boys. These boys, the Thai soccer team that found themselves trapped deep in a cave when a monsoon hit in 2016, are the subject of a documentary that we sat down to watch on New Year’s Eve. We had a sick kid on the couch, and our oldest three were out with friends. The light outside was fast fading and our conversation ran thin— tired from the day and perhaps the whole year, feeling unenthused and maybe even a tinge sad.
The documentary follows a small group of elite cave divers as they navigate a daring rescue over the span of fifteen days, a rescue that seems doomed to fail and with barely a chance of survival. It is gripping and heroic, astounding and miraculous. In the end, the only hope for the boys to be rescued is a harrowing attempt to carry them one by one, sedated, through a submerged set of tunnels that are often only large enough for one body to fit through.
We ended the film and went to bed as the clock turned over to a new year, moved to tears by such an act of human sacrifice and bravery. It turns out, the film had more to say to me about how to face the days ahead than any amount of personal reflection I had or had not been able to do. What would move a human being to take such risk, to go through such agony, just because they valued another human life, a life they had no relation or personal attachment to? And yet they did take this risk, they did value these boys lives just that much. What was this if not the reflection of the Image of God stamped on humanity?
To think, that if we as frail humans so prone to sin and destruction, so apt to hurt and harm one another, to fight for our own survival at the expense of others, if we have this God-like value for human life still lurking within us, what must it look like for God himself to see us as worth the risk?
In many ways, I begin this year worn down and unsteady. The thought of spending time to reflect over what has worked and what hasn’t, to make resolutions or plans or visions for the year ahead, has felt like the lifting of a weight I have no energy for. I can’t see a way out of the current state of things.
I am one of those boys in the cave.
We all are, in one way or another.
How astounding then, perched on our small muddy mound of existence in the dark, to see the head of our Rescuer rise up out of the water, from where it seemed impossible that help would come. The Psalmist writes*, “what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”
I think of those boys sitting long in the dark, waiting and waiting and perhaps with hope but perhaps without. I would not blame them if they had thought, “Is anyone coming? It’s been too long…”
In his letter to those early Christians**, who were waiting for the return of Christ but wondered why it was taking so long, Peter writes that many will feel this way, many will ask this question: “They will say, ‘Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’” Peter gets it. He affirms us in our temptation to grow weary. I think the Lord Jesus does too. He gives us these words, and for me they are a small but necessary lifeline:
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)
Another reminder of the value God places on human life.
All of this talk about God coming to rescue us and our waiting for his return can be confusing. Are we rescued or aren’t we? Did Jesus arrival in the first century mean we live now in victory or are we still waiting?
The tension is real. Though we look for God’s presence with us in the here and now, responding to his invitation to live fully in the kingdom of God life that he has for us, we are still longing with all of creation for the release of bondage to decay and the making of all things new. It is perhaps what Peter meant when he said at the end of his letter to those other waiting believers, “what kind of people ought you to be? You must live holy and godly lives, waiting for and hastening the coming day of God.” Waiting and hastening. Sitting and spurring on.
It all sounds like the very kind of fuzzy plan that doesn’t feel like a plan that I can carry out this year. The kind without resolutions or visions for an improved self or my best life now. The kind of plan for those weary with the current state of the world and wondering how to move forward in it.
Waiting and hastening. Sitting and spurring on.
In the places where you must sit and remember that God is patient with his creation, wanting all to turn to him— you must wait and let God’s holy work be done. Where you must hasten and spur on the kingdom of God through your acts of love and obedience— remember that this starts with knowing that you are rescued, valued, worth the risk of heaven and hell, and so is the rest of humanity.
*Psalm 8, **2 Peter 3