Saved!

“Woe is me, for I am lost!” (Isaiah 6:5)

One day last spring a member of the church came into the office. She had a perplexed look on her face, then she explained, “Uh, Steve, there's a raccoon in the dumpster. And I don't think it can get out.”

We walked across the parking lot to the dumpster and, sure enough, there it was at the bottom of the dumpster—a raccoon. It had evidently come to eat leftover pizza from the previous night's youth gathering. But the dumpster is deep enough, and there was only the one bag of trash in it, and so there was no way the raccoon could get out, for the vertical walls offered no foothold. The poor raccoon looked pitiful—it was either scared of us, or embarrassed at its stupidity, or both.

After a few minutes of head scratching, I came up with a solution. I went back into the church and got a ladder and put it in the dumpster so maybe the raccoon would climb out. Then we stepped back to watch what would happen. After just a couple of minutes, the raccoon cautiously made its way up the ladder, onto the edge of the dumpster, and then over the fence.

Saved!

This story really is a description of the gospel, when you think about it. In our sinfulness, we find ourselves trapped, unable to get ourselves out of our predicament. Maybe like the raccoon, we have let our appetites and desires take us to the wrong place. More likely, it's simply that our sin has estranged us from God and from one another, and life will never be right until we can be reconciled with God. Like the raccoon, we are unable to save ourselves. But God, who is rich in mercy, does for us what we are unable to do on our own—God saves us from our sin.

There's a beautiful story in the book of Isaiah, in which the prophet finds himself in the presence of God. In the light of God's glory, Isaiah cannot help but recognize his own sense of sinfulness and unworthiness before God: “Woe is me,” he says. “I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips (i.e., a sinner), and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips (i.e., the collective sin of our world).” Isaiah feels this sense of despair because he knows that he is unable to remedy his sin.

He is lost. Trapped in the dumpster.

It is at this point that God takes action. God doesn't throw a lightning bolt at Isaiah to smite him. God doesn't walk away from Isaiah, leaving Isaiah to perish. No, God sends his messengers, who touch Isaiah's lips with a burning hot coal and declare, “See, this has touched your lips (i.e., the locus of his sinfulness); your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” You can read this story yourself in Isaiah 6:1-8. I'm not making it up!

God does for us that which we are unable to do for ourselves: he takes our guilt away and atones for our sin. Instead of sending an angel messenger, God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to take away our sin and to offer us peace with God and reconciliation.

One final note here. When we rescued the raccoon, it uttered no word of thanks. In fact, in the past year, I have had to rescue it again and again, and one of its friends as well. 

Let that not be our response to what God has done for us. Thank God, and offer yourself as a living sacrifice in the service of God's love and grace.

That's what Isaiah did. As soon as God had taken his guilt away, Isaiah's first words in response were, “Here I am! Send me!”

Are you saved? Good. Now, give thanks. Even more, give yourself.