A Mountain of Mud and Courage

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

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There was a group of girls at a slumber party. There was a plumber installing a hot water heater. There was the nurse who was enjoying her new home - her first home. They were all in the path of that sea of mud that without warning, suddenly engulfed a full square mile of Oso, Washington. They were among the 176 people that were originally "unaccounted for". Well, the number went down to 7 recently, and at the time of this recording, 39 fatalities. One of the victims was a soldier who had actually taken leave from the Army to help in the search for his aunt and uncle because of his depression over that and apparent suicide. It's still so hard to watch.

Thankfully, seven people were rescued. That's not many in light of the missing or the lost, but seven more than would have been alive if it weren't for the rescuers. And plunging into that 15-20' deep mountain of mud required a mountain of courage. Geologists called it "quicksand." That didn't stop the rescuers. One man heard screams from the mud and the debris. He told an eyewitness, "'I'm going. There's somebody out there." They tried to stop him, but he said, "No. There's somebody trapped out there." He came back with a baby he had saved.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Mountain of Mud and Courage."

Some firefighters actually waded into that muddy "quicksand" and became stuck up to their armpits. They had to be pulled out by rope. I thought the fire chief summed it up pretty well. He said, "We have people who are yelling for help, so we're going to take extreme risks." Cries for help. Dying people. Extreme risks to save them. I sat back and said to myself, "Well, that's the mission of Jesus."

The mission to which He calls every one of us that He has rescued. Psalm 40:2 says, "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire." And our Rescuer says to us in Proverbs 24:12, "Rescue those who are being led away to death." So that desperate effort in the "mud and mire" in Washington vividly pictures the life-or-death calling of every one of us whose a child of God.

First of all, to hear the cries. Now, God told Moses in our word for today from the Word of God in Exodus 3:7-10, "I have seen the misery...I have heard them crying out...So I have come down to rescue them." And then He says, "So now, go, I am

sending you." I think that's a conversation God wants to have with me and with every follower of Jesus. "I have heard the cries of the lost people. Have you?"

See, the cries are heart-cries, that quiet desperation of the neighbor or coworker or fellow student, the person that's in the club with you, at the gym, at the store, the disintegrating marriage, that enslaving addiction, the crushing loneliness that you may not know is there but God has heard their cry, the dark secrets, the haunting past. And He's come down to rescue them, and He's sending you. Jesus proved on the cross that He cannot leave them lost, so how can I?

Secondly, the mission of Jesus - the life-or-death calling of every child of God - is to take the risks. I've had people die who I never told about my Jesus, maybe their only hope of heaven. I wasn't willing to take the risk: the risk of rejection, the risk of messing it up, the risk of losing favor, the risk of them not liking me. Now I know - with no hope of a do-over - that there is no greater risk than letting them go into eternity with no Savior from their sin. I've got to be thinking about the cost to them if I don't tell them: a life without meaning, an eternity that's unthinkable. I am someone's chance at Jesus. It's time to go in for the rescue whatever the risks, whatever the cost.