The Note That Traveled 2,300 Feet

On August 22, 2010, a drill probe broke through rock at the San José mine in Chile's Atacama Desert. For seventeen days, thirty-three miners had been trapped a half-mile underground, and the nation had all but given up hope. When the drill bit was pulled back to the surface, workers found a scrap of paper wrapped around it, scrawled in red ink: Estamos bien en el refugio, los 33. We are fine in the shelter, all 33 of us.

The engineer who read it first shouted. Then the rescue workers shouted. Then the families camped in the desert — who had named their tent city Camp Hope — erupted. Television carried the news across Santiago, across South America, across the world. Strangers embraced in the streets. Church bells rang in Copiapó. People who had been holding their breath for more than two weeks finally wept with joy.

That is what Isaiah heard in his spirit — the moment when beautiful feet come running over the mountains carrying news that changes everything. "Your God reigns!" The watchmen see it and cry out together. The ruins themselves break into singing. Not because the danger was never real, but because the rescue is.

The Gospel is that note from the deep. It says: They are alive. All of them. And the Almighty is bringing them home.