One of the great biblical metaphors for the human condition is that we need rescuing. We are unable to help ourselves and need someone to do the job for us. In this picture Jesus is the one who takes responsibility for the human capacity to mess things up. He puts us right with God.
We have contrasting stories of things needing fixing today. Birnbeck Pier falls into greater and greater levels of dereliction. Nobody seems able to agree how to mend it or who should pay. To think that Birnbeck was originally a lifeboat station - a place of rescue.
Meanwhile the wonderful DIY SOS team have come to the rescue of a Weston family who have multiple mobility problems to overcome.
One of the great unstated questions of our time is this; who or what gets rescued? How do we decide?
We have limited resources of actual money and also of generosity. How should we use our time and talents for the benefit of others? People? Buildings? Vistas? Piers?
I suspect that the various owners of Birnbeck Pier down the ages have seen their ownership as an investment. How can we make money out of this thing that sticks out into the sea? As the possibilities of economic development are exhausted, the pier itself has more and more bits that fall off. I know how it feels.
The Victorian Society declares it needs rescuing. But someone needs to do it.
The DIY SOS team declare that a family need rescuing and many volunteers step up, sacrificially.
The Bible declares that we, more important than a pier, all need rescuing or we die? I wonder if you agree?
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