Three Hundred Joules

On September 14, 2019, paramedic Sarah Chen pressed the paddles against a construction worker's chest in a parking lot off Interstate 5 near Tacoma, Washington. His heart had stopped. Bystanders winced. The machine charged — three hundred joules of electricity released in a fraction of a second.

His heart restarted.

Nobody in that parking lot questioned whether the method looked undignified. Nobody debated whether electricity was too simple or too dramatic a solution. A man was dying, and there existed a power that could bring him back. That was enough.

Paul uses the Greek word dunamis when he writes, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes." Dunamis — raw, concentrated force. The kind of power that restarts what has stopped beating.