As the world moves on, a
long-forgotten part of the Chilean miners’ story is the one that should have
been told
Khen Lim
Image source: australs.blogspot.com
It’s 2014, four years after the
near-catastrophic mining accident in Copiapó, Chile. Four
years is a long time. Not much of the world remembers it today other than the
fact that thirty-three miners walked out alive to the jubilation of not just
the country but the whole world.
For
sixty-nine days, these 33 miners were trapped deep below ground in a mine,
holding a mesmerising world gripped in fear and worry. While the 22 hours taken
to rescue them seemed like a fraction of the number of days the miners were
forced to spend underground, every hour spent trying to save them was agonising
but right through it all, more than a billion viewers sat glued to their
televisions looking for that breakthrough.
In America
alone, Fox News captured the highest viewer count in a decade, relegating NBC
to a distant second. While mainstream media were talking about the rescue
effort and the methods that were used, the parts of the story that were even
more important were largely kept apart from the public. No one talked about it
in the media. No one reported it. No one wrote about it in the newspapers
around the world.
As
everyone trained their attention at the miners who had come up on the rescue
capsule one at a time, much was praised of the rescue process but we failed to
notice even what the miners were wearing as they walked into freedom from their
trapped underground.
Each
of the miners was actually wearing a very specially-designed beige-coloured tee-shirt
emblazoned with important words. The shirts were the idea of the Chilean branch
of the Campus Crusade for Christ. The words across the back of the shirt said
the following:
“Gracias,
Señor!
Porque en su mano están
las profundidades de la tierra, y las alturas de los montes son suyas.”
Image source: www.zazzle.com
Translated
in English, it says:
“Thank
You, Lord! In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the heights of the
hills are His.”
If
you must know, there are words in fine print below that to remind us that these
words are from Psalm 95:4, dated 10/13/2010 and titled, ‘Rescued Chilean
Miners.’
The
words were printed in white against a large Chilean flag in solid red, blue and
a white star in the background. It was difficult to miss but the mainstream
media did (miss). Whether they did so intentionally or otherwise, I’d leave it
to your judgement.
Image source: 30demayo.wordpress.com
The
story behind these words is especially precious.
Even
as the church had ordered the tee-shirts to be printed and given to them, the
words were the request of the miners themselves. As Campus Crusade delivered
the shirts to the trapped miners, they also gave them MP3 players that were
preinstalled with audio versions of the ‘Jesus’ film including the Bible, both
in Spanish.
Image source: www.independent.co.uk
Reverend
Alfredo Cooper (above), the chaplain to the President of Chile recalled the event.
“They
all wanted to testify for the Lord Jesus Christ. All thirty-three of them said
that they found God in the mine. Five or six of them were already Christians
and held services down in the mine. Many went down with no faith at all but
every one of them said this: ‘We were not thirty-three… we were THIRTY-FOUR for
Jesus Christ was with us down there.’”
Image source: nydailynews.com
One
particular miner by the name of Mario Sepúlveda had said to the reporters, “We never lost faith.
We knew we would be rescued. I have been with God and I’ve also been with the
devil. I seized the Hand of God. I always knew God would get us out of there.”
Not thirty-three but THIRTY-FOUR.
If you’re familiar with the Book of Daniel, you will recall something uncannily
similar to this story.
In Daniel 3 (NASB), the Bible
tells us of the story of Daniel’s three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
who refused to fall down and worship before the statue of the Babylonian king
and they were made to pay the price for their disobedience.
In 3:16-18, the three then said
to the king, “…we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it
be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing
fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not,
let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or
worship the golden image that you have set up.”
Image source: www.temkit.com
Pretty strong stuff to be saying
to one’s king but their resoluteness against false worship was as powerful as
their allegiance to God. In short they were saying that even if they didn’t get
saved, their faith would still not waver. If they did die in the fire and not
get saved, they’d still believe that God would do what was best for the three
of them.
They knew their place in the
predicament. They knew their belief in God would somehow rescue them. The
Chilean miners felt exactly the same
and like them, Daniel’s three friends were not three in the fiery pit but FOUR
as verses 24 to 25 (NASB) testified:
Image source: lds.org
“Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was
astounded and stood up in haste; he said to his high officials, ‘Was it not
three men we cast bound into the midst of the fire?’ They replied to the king, ‘Certainly,
O king.’ He said, ‘Look! I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst
of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the
gods!’”
For a non-believer, the assertion
that the ‘fourth’ “is like a son of the gods” is as close as he could get to
saying that this was God Himself. And the truth is it was!
“Nebuchadnezzar responded and
said, ‘Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent His
angel and delivered His servants who put their trust in Him, violating the king’s
command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god
except their own God.’” (v.28, NASB)
Another very interesting point
missed completely by the mainstream media was that a medic was despatched down
the rescue hole before the miners could be brought up one by one. Even if it
was reported, the significance was lost on what this meant.
Image source: cdn.agilitycms.com
Passionate Christians all over
the world know that the Father sent His One and Begotten Son down to us before
we could ever dream of being rescued.
Without Him, our lives were headed for doom. We could never be rescued any
other way. No matter how intelligent or resourceful we may be, we don’t have
the wherewithal to escape death. But Jesus came forth to us and said the most
precious words that sinners would all want to hear:
“I am the Light of the world; he
who follows Me will not walk in the darkness but will have the Light of life
(John 8:12, NASB). I have come as Light into the world so that everyone who
believes in Me will not remain in darkness (John 12:46, NASB).”
The rescue of the 33 Chilean
miners should never be told without giving glory to God. No story as such is
ever complete if the truth is not revealed. If these miners can proclaim so
loudly that it was Christ who saved all of them, what about you? Would you be
as proud to tell the world too?
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