The Miners of Copiapó

On August 5, 2010, the San José copper mine in Copiapó, Chile, collapsed. Thirty-three miners were trapped 2,300 feet underground — deeper than two Empire State Buildings stacked end to end. For seventeen days, the world assumed they were dead. The men rationed two spoonfuls of tuna every forty-eight hours. They lived in total darkness, in suffocating heat reaching 95 degrees, unsure if anyone was even looking for them.

Then on August 22, a drill bit broke through the rock ceiling of their refuge. Attached to it was a note. The miners sent one back: "Estamos bien en el refugio, los 33." We are fine in the shelter, all 33 of us.

It took sixty-nine days total, but one by one, each man was pulled to the surface in a narrow rescue capsule called the Fénix — the Phoenix. As each miner emerged, blinking against sunlight he hadn't seen in over two months, the crowd erupted. Strangers wept. Families collapsed into embraces. A nation that had been holding its breath finally exhaled.

Isaiah declares that the people walking in darkness have seen a great light. Not a light they generated themselves. Not a light they earned. A light that broke through from above — uninvited, relentless, piercing the rock. The yoke of their burden was shattered, and joy flooded in like Chilean sunlight on a miner's face. That is what God does. He drills through the darkness to reach us.