Rescue

“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” – Romans 7:24-25

Something amazing happened today. During a family meeting to debrief a fight, I was describing what one of the kids had done wrong when the child in question started crying. Typically the kids, particularly this one, aren’t very verbal when they get that emotional, but suddenly words started coming out in between the sobs, about how they knew they were wrong but just couldn’t stop, in this torrent of self-incrimination and anger and sadness. It was a very real glimpse into the interior struggle all of us have but few of us admit to ourselves or allow others to see. It’s the struggle Paul admits to in Romans 7: “For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”

When I was younger, I got so frustrated at the end of Romans 7, because I wanted a more concrete answer to how to fix this problem, how to stop doing what I know I shouldn’t do. I felt like Paul builds up to a cliffhanger, then just goes on to say, “Thanks be to God!” Thanks for what? What was the twelve-step process? What was the solution? –try harder? avoid triggers? make a fresh resolution? 

I asked one of our pastors last year, if you could memorize any chapter in the entire Bible, which would you choose? His response was immediate: “Romans chapter 8.” So I did it, and it’s now, amazingly, that I see that the entire chapter is Paul’s answer. I should I have seen it in the way he phrases the question in Romans 7:24: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Who, not what. Deliver, not advise. We cannot save ourselves. We are in need, not of advice or therapy, but of rescue. The question is not, “what can I do?” but, “who can rescue me?” The answer is not a technique but a person, and our response is simply, thank you, Jesus. He spells this out all through the next chapter: Jesus has put to death this thing in you that does the wrong thing, and because of that, live according to the spirit. There are action steps, but it only comes after the rescue, for the rescue itself is a deliverance not only from the consequences of sin but its power in our lives.

I’ve been asking God lately to show me what purpose he has for me during this time, and part of the answer came today. Normally, it’s rare to have such a collectively vulnerable moment, and part of what all the recent friction and grief has done is laid bare our very real need for rescue. I pulled this child into my lap and said, I have really good news! When you feel like this, you can do a few things. You can conclude you’re a shameful, bad person; you can hate yourself and do things to make up for that shame. You can ignore it, convince yourself you’re still good most of the time, and tell yourself you’ll try harder. Or you can admit you need rescue. Jesus has given that to you, and you can ask him for help! Even when you hate yourself the most, he looks at you and sees someone worthy of love, someone he loves so much. In that moment, I thought to myself, thank you God, for this time that brings us to the gospel. I don’t have all the answers, but I can still thank you, and receive moments like these that you give me.