It had all started as a fun adventure. Marie Peary and her mother had boarded a ship, named the Windward, to search for her father, Robert E. Peary. He had been away from his family for two years, as he tried again to reach the North Pole, and the family missed him. The Windward was taking supplies to the great explorer, and Marie and her mother hoped to meet him too.
At their first stop, they found that Peary had gone farther north, to Payer Harbor. They picked up some of his supplies, as he had left instructions to do, and also many of the Inuit men of that area who wanted to go along to hunt musk ox. One of those who joined the ship was Marie’s good friend Koodlooktoo, a teenage boy. At Payer Harbor they once again met with disappointment; Marie’s father had gone on still farther north. The ship’s captain explained to Marie and her mother that it was getting too late in the season to wait any longer for his return and that they would need to return to Newfoundland. But that very night a blizzard wind blew the ship onto rocks. By the time the ship was repaired and ready to sail, it was too late ... the ice had frozen them into the harbor. Marie didn’t mind. She loved the Arctic where she had been born, and she loved adventure.
One day Marie, who was seven, and Koodlooktoo, who was fifteen, set out on a four-mile walk across the frozen bay to Cape Sabine. The Windward’s captain wanted to know the condition of the ice at the Cape, so he could make plans when they could sail. The two friends walked across the ice in the bright moonlight of the long Arctic night and had their lunch on a hill overlooking the Cape. They could see that the ice to the north was still unbroken. But when they turned to head back to the ship, to their alarm they found a deep, wide channel where the ice had broken up. They would have to find a new way home!
The detour journey back was much longer than the morning’s walk had been. Wearily they struggled on, sometimes up to their waists in snow, sometimes slipping as they went up icy hills. Marie begged Koodlooktoo to stop for a rest, but he wisely refused, knowing that if they fell asleep in that cold, they might easily freeze to death.
Finally, from a hilltop, Marie saw the welcome lights of the ship shining through the darkness. What a welcome sight! In her exhaustion, she sat down and started to slide down what looked to her like a smooth ride down the hill to home, in spite of warnings from Koodlooktoo that the slope was actually a glacier that could have a dangerous cliff.
I wonder ... have you been warned that you are on your way to a place of danger? If you don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you are on a dangerous road, the slippery road to hell where you will be punished for your sins. But “God is love” (1 John 4:1616And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16)), and He has made a way to rescue you from that eternal punishment. It is through the death of His own Son.
Koodlooktoo saw his little friend hurtling to possible death, and he acted as only a brave and loving friend would. He threw himself down the icy slope, whizzing past Marie. Kicking his legs and flailing his arms, he found footing when he was nearly on the edge of a cliff. As Marie slid wildly toward him, he reached out and caught her before she went over the edge.
What love it took for Koodlooktoo to risk his life to save his young friend! The Bible says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:1313Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)). Koodlooktoo risked his life to save Marie, but the Lord Jesus gave His life to save you from eternal punishment. He went to the cross of Calvary, where God placed upon Jesus all the sins of those who would believe on Him and punished His Son for those sins that we had committed. Won’t you accept such wonderful love and be free from the penalty of your sins?
ML-10/18/2009