The Rescue Swimmer Who Jumped In

When a fishing vessel capsized off the coast of Cape Disappointment, Washington, in February 2021, Coast Guard rescue swimmer Chris Dean faced a decision every AST dreads. The seas were running fifteen feet. Water temperature hovered at forty-four degrees. Two fishermen clung to the overturned hull, hypothermic and slipping.

Dean could have stayed in the helicopter. The crew could have lowered a basket. But baskets fail in heavy seas. Panicked hands lose grip. So Dean did what rescue swimmers are trained to do — he jumped.

He entered the same freezing water. He fought the same waves. He felt the same cold seizing his muscles, the same salt burning his eyes. And because he was there — not hovering above, not shouting instructions from safety — he could wrap his arms around a drowning man and say, "I've got you. Hold onto me."

This is exactly what the writer of Hebrews describes. The Son of God did not rescue humanity from a distance. He shared in our flesh and blood. He entered our freezing waters — hunger, grief, exhaustion, temptation, death itself. He took on the very thing that terrified us so He could destroy its power from the inside.