While We Were Still Weak

 

Romans 5:6

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.                         

While we were weak and helpless, trapped in sin, Jesus Christ died for us. This reminded me immediately of a story I heard several years ago about a child falling down a pipe in South America. I couldn’t find that article because so many recent stories came back when I searched. Evidently this happens all the time around the world. Here’s one.

They rescued a girl from a horrifying ordeal after she stumbled and fell down a well. The youngster had been playing on a building site in China and was found trapped between the wall of the well and a cement pipe. She was crying and trying to protect her face from dirt and soil that kept falling into the tiny hole as rescuers stood above her wondering what to do. Worse still, as workers worked to free her, she slipped further down. They saved her by removing two top sections of the pipe, and a man attached to a rope clambered down to pull her out.

Look, being born with a sin nature is like falling down a spiritual hole. Our access to God, our peace and relationship with him are immediately out of our reach. And the more we try to move toward the light, the deeper we fall. Like the little girl, we are powerless to get out of this void. Every move we make drops us deeper.

And Satan’s lie, and the lie of our hearts is that it isn’t true. The lie is that God is standing over the opening of the hole telling us, “Just try a bit harder and you can pull yourself out. I’m right here waiting for you with a wonderful eternity—there’s a party up here.” Or as some religions tell us, he’s lowered a rope ten feet down to help us. “Just climb halfway up and my grace will help you the rest of the way.” Imagine if this girl’s rescuers had told her that, we’d be so angry—and rightly so!

These verses tell us that while we were still ungodly, while we were sinners trapped deep down the hole and falling deeper—weak and helpless—Jesus Christ died on the cross for us. He reached all the way down to us, cradled us in his arms and pulled us up to eternal life with God.