Monday, March 31, 2003
Monday, March 31, 2003
But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even
when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
"Now that I look back on it," she says now, "it was a pretty ugly animal to be kissing, but the last
thing I wanted to do was tell this little boy that his iguana had died." The lizard responded to her
efforts and is expected to make a full recovery.
Now that story may not impress you, but it impresses me. I think I would have difficulty bringing
myself to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to an iguana. I salute Officer Tori Matthews. She
went beyond the call of duty. In Ephesians 2:4 the Apostle Paul writes to the church at Ephesus:
"God, who is rich in mercy, out of the love with which he loved us even when we were dead
through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--and
raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." To relate
St. Paul to the story of Officer Tori Matthews, we might say that in Jesus Christ, God has
resuscitated an iguana--and we are that iguana. "While we were dead through our trespasses..."
Paul says to us. While we were unbeautiful, while we were sleazy, while we were unworthy, God
reached out with love and forgiveness and eternal life.
(Ephesians 2.4-5
NRSV)
Officer Tori Matthews of the Southern California Humane Society got an emergency call: a boy's
pet iguana had been scared up a tree by a neighbor's dog. It then fell from the tree into a
swimming pool, where it sank like a brick. Officer Matthews came with her net. She dived into
the pool, emerging seconds later with the pet's limp body. "Well, you do CPR on a person and a
dog," she thought to herself, "why not an iguana?" So she put her lips to the iguana's.
Dear Jesus, I acknowledge you as my savior. Your grace is wonderful. Amen.
