When Someone is Drowning

Jamel Dunn was drowning.  He had been distraught. He apparently waded into a large pond-like body of water. We don’t know what his intent was, but we do know that after a time he became afraid of dying. He called for helped. He screamed for someone to rescue him.

A small group of teenagers, ages 14-16, were standing across the body of water watching Jamel grow weaker. They heard his voice, his pleas for assistance.  They turned on their cell phone and, rather than calling for help, started videotaping Jamel drowning.  They called out to him with words to the effect, “You shouldn’t have gone in there.”  After Jamel died, still laughing, they said, as if congratulating themselves, “we could have done something for him but we didn’t.” And they laughed some more.

The legal authorities explained that there were no laws requiring someone to help a drowning man. That doesn’t surprise me. As a former legislator I can confess that there are some wrongs you just cannot imagine you would need a law against.  There is a standard in the law which says “this shocks the conscience of the court.”  It won’t apply in this situation, but it is likely that you want it to apply; it is likely that you want some means for the legal system, on behalf of Jamel Dunn and you, society itself, to say, “we cannot let such disregard for life to go unpunished.”

I have no evidence for this, but I believe that this act of disregard for life would shock the conscience of every society.  To watch a child of God die without intervening, when you had the tools to do so without even endangering your own life, must be abhorrent to all sane humanity.  Why would that be true? Because, I believe, God has placed in the minds, the consciences of all of his created ones, God’s own image. (Genesis 1:26).  People are as close to God as their conscience; we, as created beings, know “right” from “wrong” without an act of Congress. (Romans 1:20)

And if we have this understanding as those made in the image of God, what does that tell us about God, the “image-maker”?  When God sees someone drowning, do you think God stands by telling the angels, “He shouldn’t have gone in there?” Or do you believe that it is the very nature of God to send One to save those who have gone in too deep?   

If you saw Jamel Dunn drowning you would have done something to help him, right? In the same way, when God sees someone is drowning, Jesus saves. You know that’s true, don’t you?