“EIGHTEEN LOST WHEN BOAT IS DRAWN INTO LEVEE BREAK.
ALL ON BOARD BELIEVED TO HAVE PERISHED!”
This was the alarming newspaper headline. The small ship Pelican had been caught in a huge whirlpool near a break in the Mississippi River levee and had capsized, drowning all its crew, or so the newspaper reported. But why was the Pelican on the river? What is a levee? Why did it burst open? And was the newspaper report really true?
For weeks rain kept falling from the skies across the Midwest, overflowing rivers and streams that flowed into the Mississippi River. The riverbanks had been built up with high walls of earth called levees. These kept the river flowing toward the Gulf of Mexico and not spilling out to cover the small towns and farm fields that bordered the mighty river. Slowly the rushing waters rose higher and higher, threatening to spill over the tops of the levees. Worse yet, the pressure of millions of tons of water, pushing against the tired dirt walls, saturated them with water and weakened them.
All of us have been in similar trouble. We’ve sinned: “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)). All it takes is one sin to keep us out of God’s presence, but we have been guilty of raining down many sins—pride, envy, covetousness, anger—to name a few. We try to prevent others from noticing our sins, and maybe we succeed for a while, just like the levees were able to hold back the floodwaters. But God wants repentance, not efforts to hide them. He said to a group of self-righteous people, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:33I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. (Luke 13:3)).
Up and down the river, boats like the Pelican brought men to the edges of the levees to pile on more dirt and boards to push back against the rising waters. In some places, work crews had more than a thousand men. One of them, Sam Tucker, was disliked by leaders in the community and was poorly treated. They felt they were better than he and ordered him to do the heavy work, with little care or concern for his safety or health. He was one of many they viewed as rejects.
The Lord Jesus was treated in much the same way when He was here. “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:33He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53:3)).
Then far to the north, winter snows melted and spring rains followed, all adding to the already swollen river. Soon over thirty thousand men were working around the clock to pile sandbags across the tops of the levees to hold back the weight of what was now billions of tons of water.
The morning of April 21, 1927, the levee burst as a roaring wall of water tore out a hundred-foot-long section. All along the river, sections of the wall crumbled and collapsed as alarm bells clanged and fire whistles shrieked as thousands raced for higher ground.
Farther north, the Pelican with twenty crewmembers was helping with the work on the levee when suddenly the waters broke through and began ripping open an ever-larger hole. Water began to swirl and churn toward the break, pulling everything that floated with it. The Pelican was caught in the turbulence and then overturned as it was sucked through the gaping hole. Thousands of workers and refugees who lined the levees watched in horror, unable to do anything to help. Only one man had the courage to act.
Sam Tucker grabbed a rowboat and took off alone to chase the capsized ship. The rushing waters carried his boat toward the levee break, as he desperately worked to keep his tiny rowboat upright. Then he chased down the Pelican on the spreading floodwaters. He managed to pull two of its crew from the raging waters to safety. The disliked and rejected man was the only one with the courage to risk his life for others.
Were there no survivors as the newspaper said? Many died, but not all, thanks to Sam Tucker’s courage. Do all on this earth have to perish in their sins? Many will, but none need to, because of the work the hated and rejected Jesus Christ has done to rescue us from danger. “Scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:7-87For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:7‑8)). Sam Tucker courageously dared to die, but Jesus Christ voluntarily took the wrath of a holy God against sin to provide a way of escape for you from that flood of your sins. Will you receive His love and forgiveness?
ML-08/16/2009