In the epic blockbuster Titanic, there’s an especially tragic scene near the end of the film. After the giant cruise ship has sunk in the frigid North Atlantic, a lone lifeboat returns, floating through a sea of frozen bodies, calling out, hoping to find any survivors… but the boat’s calls are answered only with silence. They were too late.
Paul describes a similar scene for the Ephesians in Chapter 2:1-3:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Like in the movie, it’s a similarly tragic scene – looking around, hunting in vain for someone – anyone who has survived The Fall that we can throw a life preserver to. But the life preservers stay in the boat, because you don’t throw a life preserver to a man who has already drowned.
“But God…”
These may be the most hope-filled words in the entire Bible: “But God.” The pages of Scripture are littered with stories of mankind trying to write God out of the story, to hijack the script and make ourselves the hero. But God refuses to give up on us and He continues to write Himself back into the story. In Paul’s description, God bursts onto that dark, hopeless scene and does the unthinkable: He gives life to dead people.
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. (Ephesians 2:4-5)
It’s Monday again. Mondays are the day when the alarm goes off too early, and we march off to work, or get the kids up and fed, or whatever it is you do that marks the end of the weekend. How will you do what you do today? Fight the urges from your former self – your dead self. Instead, work to make Him the hero of your story – not you.
And if you’re up against something truly impossible right now, I pray that this is encouraging to you. We were dead – all of us. Dead! Like the passengers on the Titanic, we were beyond rescue. But God… God did the impossible when He raised Jesus from the grave – and if death is no problem for Him to overcome, then He is also powerful enough and loving enough to carry you through or over whatever it is in front of you.
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