On October 14th, 1987, a little girl named Jessica McClure fell down a well shaft in the small town of Midland, Texas. The shaft was eight inches in diameter and twenty-two feet deep. She was lost to her parents with no way on her own to get out. She was absolutely trapped. From the bottom of this well shaft in this little town she became the focus of the whole nation. Every major news network focused in on Midland, Texas, and the girl named Jessica, who was trapped in the well.

For fifteen hours, men dug and drilled. They didn’t know initially that to get to her they would have to go through some limestone. This stone cracked the bits on the drills that they were using to make their way through the shaft. Getting to little Jessica took a lot longer than anyone expected. After fifteen hours or so someone was able to get down into the shaft, untangle little Jessica, and bring her up to the top. Cameras focused upon the opening to the shaft caught the man bringing Jessica up out of the abyss and into the arms of her waiting parents. The site, which had filled for hours with people hoping and praying, was filled with joy. The rescuers were crying, her parents were crying, the newscasters were crying, and spectators from across the nation were crying because little Jessica, who was almost certainly dead, was now alive. But in order for Jessica McClure to live, someone else had to save her.

Similarly, every member of the human race is trapped. We have fallen into an abyss out of which we can never lift ourselves (cf. Romans 3:23). If we want to get out of this hole that we’re in, somebody has to come down to where we’ve been trapped by sin and rescue us. Somebody has to drill a hole to where we are. Even though we might try as hard as we can, the chasm is too deep and we can’t climb out.

At the heart of the gospel, that’s what Jesus did (cf. Romans 5:8). He saw each of us trapped in an abyss. We were trying to get out with good works, but we weren’t getting anywhere. But God, coming as the person of Jesus Christ, entered the chasm of our death, and offered deliverance from above. Not only did God offer His people deliverance, He also offers assurance. The same Jesus Christ not only saves, He also assures.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:4-9 ESV)

In Christ,
Jonathan Anderson