A Tail Of Salvation
Natalie McClatchey
We recently accepted an offer on the sale of our home in Australia, and the day had come for the building and pest inspection, a key milestone in the sale process Down Under. There was just one small catch: the night prior to the inspection, two very large rats had been caught on camera as they mounted a relentless assault on the flyscreens around our property.
This began a week-long obsession for us as we remotely watched the evening adventures of Stuart Little and his girlfriend from the other side of the world, via motion-activated cam. Each night they frolicked in and out of the steel trap our daughter had set, taunting her dog through the glass sliding doors, gobbling the peanut butter aimed at luring them in, escaping with ever-increasing boldness.
I pondered this tale (tail) in the light of my own upcoming contribution to the church Monday Reflections. Could I weave some analogy about heaven suffering violence (as my own house was)? I even found a weird Bible story about the Philistines, some gold rats and gold tumours in 1 Samuel 5-6, which didn’t seem fitting!
It was the night we caught one of the rodents that caused me to put pen to paper. I watched the heartbreaking footage of one rat caught while his mate squealed inconsolably, desperate to set him free. In my mind, I could hear James Blunt singing, “Goodbye my lover” as the soundtrack to the fate of the star-crossed mates.
As crazy as it seems, I cried over those disease-riddled vermin that had single-pawedly tried to breach the sanctity of my home. I wept silly, sentimental tears for the lovelorn rats who would not be saved but were doomed to perish.
And this made me think about God. And humanity.
We are like the rats. We have poisoned the water, the soil and the air. We have doomed innumerable species to extinction. We wage war. We commit genocide and homicide. We steal, we plunder, we lie. We break each other’s hearts. We gossip. We tear each other down to build our ourselves up.
Romans 3:10 sums it up as, “There is no one righteous, not even one.”
God saw we couldn’t save ourselves. He didn’t turn His face in disgust and wish death on us. He didn’t observe our fate passively and feel mere compassion as I did.
Heaven went further. God came near. He did the ultimate – He became one of us, and then died to save us.
Paul says Jesus “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” (Philippians 2:6-7) so that we could be cleansed: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) Not to go on living as rodents – destructive, self-serving – but to live like Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20)
I am so grateful that the God we serve isn’t passive, doesn’t turn His face away from our plight, and didn’t wash His hands of us.
I am so grateful that the God of Creation stooped low and was born as Immanuel, God with us. I am so grateful to know Yeshua, the One who saves. And I am so grateful that I am set free, and now a daughter of the King.
Join with me today to express your own gratitude to God as we celebrate the Lord who loved us first!
(ps: I’m sorry Stuart)
