These words were spoken by Danny Mills as he was placed on a list for a lung transplant.  His battle with Covid-19 had begun 8 months earlier.  He had been in 2 different hospitals and had been placed on an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine – a form of life support that replaces the functions of the lungs and heart.  Without a lung transplant, Danny would not be able to continue to live, his doctors reported.

“The cold hard fact — you strip away the fluff and everything — once I got listed, now I’m waiting for somebody to die,” Danny said. “Somebody has to die for me to live. And that’s tough to think about, tough to know.”

On April 2, 2022, a set of lungs became available because someone died but willed that his lungs be donated.  The next day, Danny underwent surgery for a double lung transplant.  The transplant was successful.

Danny had to undergo three months of therapy – five sessions a day.  He also had to have blood infusions twice a week during that time.  After a few more weeks of outpatient therapy, on July 22, 2022 – 372 days after Danny was first admitted to the hospital – he was told that he could go home.

Cars and people lined up on both sides of the street leading to his home to welcome him.  Recalling the experience, Danny said, “There’s cars lined up on both sides of the road. There’s people lined up … cheering and clapping. And I’ve thought about, wondered, if that’s the way it’s going to be in heaven when we get there.” *

Without a doubt, Danny is incredibly thankful and humbled, for someone had to die so that he could live.

Friends, that is a truth that all of us need to embrace: Somebody had to die so that we could live.

The wages of our sin is death (Romans 6:23).  Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), we are all under sin’s condemnation.  The only way for us to have life – an abundant life now filled with spiritual blessings and eternal life in heaven – is for Someone to die for our sins to redeem us from sin.

Jesus, God’s Son, was the only One who could die in our stead, for only He was sinless and only He could pay the price for our sins.  “God made Him who had no sin to be sin [i.e., a sin offering] for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

He died so that we might live.  Won’t YOU accept His offer of salvation and eternal life?

-- David A. Sargent