The Weight He Carried Down the Mountain

In 2018, a Thai soccer coach named Ekkapol Chantawong led twelve boys into the Tham Luang cave for a quick adventure. When floodwaters sealed the entrance, he was trapped with them in darkness for eighteen days. Rescuers later discovered that Ekkapol had given all his food to the boys. He taught them to meditate to slow their breathing and conserve oxygen. He wrote letters to their parents, apologizing, taking the full weight of responsibility onto himself. When divers finally reached them, Ekkapol insisted every single boy be carried out before him. He would be last.

The boys emerged to flashbulbs and relief. Ekkapol emerged gaunt, barely conscious, crushed under guilt for leading them there in the first place — even though every parent forgave him, even though the whole world called him a hero.

In Luke 22-23, Jesus walks deliberately into His own dark cave. He shares a final meal, knowing the betrayal is already in motion. He sweats blood in Gethsemane. He endures the mockery, the scourging, the cross — not because He wandered into danger by accident, but because He chose to carry every one of us out first. Unlike Ekkapol, Jesus needed no forgiveness. He was the forgiveness. The Almighty wrapped in human skin, insisting that we go ahead of Him, absorbing the full flood so we could breathe again.