The Roar

After six days of evading capture by the Taliban in the rugged Afghanistan mountains, Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell was found. He was sheltered and protected by gracious Pashtun leaders until a squad of Army Rangers and Green Berets broke through thick forests to deliver Luttrell from danger and bring him home.

News of his rescue sped around the world and back home to his family’s Texas ranch. A voice from the SEAL base at Coronado Island crackled through the phone to Marcus’s mother, “We got him, ma’am. We got Marcus. And he’s stable.”

One of the SEAL team members keeping vigil with Marcus’s parents sprinted out the front door and onto the front porch. He called to the three-hundred neighbors, friends, military support personnel, chaplains, first responders, and caring community members who were keeping vigil after Marcus went missing in action following a fierce firefight: “They got him, guys! Marcus has been rescued!”

Luttrell recalled in his book, Lone Survivor:

"They tell me the roar which erupted over those lonely pastures way down there in the back country of East Texas could have been heard in Houston, fifty-five miles away. Morgan [my twin brother] says it wasn’t just your average roar. It was spontaneous. Deafening. Everyone together, top of their lungs, a pure outpouring of relief and joy…” (p. 360)

The roar of joy when one who is lost is found. 

Jesus talked about the same phenomenon in the parable of the lost sheep: “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7).

Can you imagine the heavenly roar when one who is lost is found?

Spontaneous. Deafening. Everyone together, top of their lungs, a pure outpouring of relief and joy.

I’ve known people who have been found by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know people who are being found today. The joy and relief on earth is moving and inspiring. The baptized, the repentant and confessing, families, friends. They are but a small echo of the roar in heaven.

You and I have been sent as part of God’s rescue team. Armed with the living Word of God that does not return empty and the life-restoring news of the risen Jesus, we search and shelter and bandage and guide and travel and sacrifice and listen and share and pray. And rescues happen. Every day. And so does that blessed and joyous roar.

What can be better than that? Who wouldn’t want to be a part of helping to make the roar resound?