There’s a scene in “Brave Heart” where the girl William Wallace loves is captured by the English. She is trussed up on a pole, breathing hard, eyes scanning the horizon in the desperate hope that Wallace will show up to rescue her.
But he is too late. A cruel sword slices her throat. The light goes out of her eyes.
Sometimes I feel like that woman, anxiously scanning the horizon, waiting for Jesus to ride up on his white horse and rescue me from my troubles.
Where is he?
The way this life plays out sometimes, it can feel like God is too late. When we are hard pressed and circumstances are dire, we want to be rescued, and now. We aren’t interested in pie in the sky or platitudes from the friends of Job.
Here’s the thing: Jesus is no mere hero. He is the Savior.
A hero has passion and zeal for justice. He will do all he can to save another, even at risk to himself. But he is only human, and can only do so much.
The Savior is all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing. His justice doesn’t only take care of one unfair act; it overarches all the deeds of history. All of them. Ultimately, as Beth Moore puts it, nobody gets away with anything.
Justice isn’t always meted out in the short run. Neither is healing, or rescue from financial ruin, or many other needs we feel desperate about in the moment.
Consider the strange timetable Jesus kept when he walked the earth. When his good friend Lazarus became very ill, Jesus could easily have gotten to him in plenty of time to heal him. Yet he waited four days. Lazarus died.
Why did Jesus wait so long?
There is a bigger picture behind the scenes. This is where trust is stretched and tested. It’s in the four days, in the long moment of standing tied to a pole facing our demise, in the not knowing yet still looking to God for hope and help.
Where is he?
He is perfectly on time, perhaps not on our timetable, but on his. The one that matters for eternity. As Lazarus’ resurrection proved — and later, Jesus’ own — even death is no match for the Savior. Which means there are lots of other issues we can trust him with implicitly.
Maybe you feel desperate today. Maybe your eyes have been straining for the horizon, your heart crying for answers.
If so, it’s not a hero you need – it’s the Savior.