The Diver Who Surfaced at Tham Luang

For nine days, families gathered outside Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand barely slept. Twelve boys from the Wild Boars soccer team and their twenty-five-year-old coach had vanished into flooded caverns on June 23, 2018. Monsoon rains kept rising. Navy SEALs, international rescue teams, and hundreds of volunteers worked around the clock, but silence answered every effort. Parents clutched photographs and prayed into the humid dark.

Then on July 2, British diver John Volanthen surfaced after navigating miles of submerged passages. He carried three words that rewrote everything: "They're all alive."

The news hit the crowd like a current. Mothers who had kept vigil for over a week collapsed weeping. Volunteers embraced strangers. Within minutes, all of Thailand erupted in celebration. The good news simply could not be contained.

Isaiah saw this kind of moment centuries earlier. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news," he proclaimed — the messenger racing toward a people who had surrendered hope, carrying word that captivity was ending. The watchmen see it first and raise their voices. Then the very ruins break into singing.

This is the shape of the gospel. We were trapped in a darkness deeper than any flooded cave. And the Messenger came — not merely carrying good news but embodying it. The Lord Himself has bared His holy arm. The rescue is accomplished. And like those Thai families weeping with relief at a cave mouth in Chiang Rai, all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.