Lifeboats are a familiar sight when we are on holiday in Britain. In 2019 lifeboats were launched 8941 times and 372 lives were saved. Since the RNLI was founded in 1824, more than 143,000 lives have been saved. More than 600 lifeboat crew lives have also been lost. Most of the people who crew the lifeboats are volunteers who are willing to put their own lives in danger in order to save the lives of others. Many have reason to thank lifeboat crews for their dedication, courage and skill.

On Saturday 19 December 1981, the Penlee lifeboat “Solomon Browne” was launched in hurricane conditions to go to the aid of 8 people on board the coaster MV Union Star that had engine failure and being swept towards the southern coast of Cornwall. Wind gusts reached 100mph and the waves were 60 feet high. A Royal Navy Sea King helicopter was unable to get a line to the crew, so the Penlee lifeboat, with 8 crew members, was launched in the darkness at 8.21pm. The lifeboat’s coxswain, Trevelyan Richards, repeatedly took the lifeboat alongside the coaster and managed to get 4 people off. As he made a further attempt to come alongside the stricken coaster the lifeboat was completely wrecked with the loss of all lives on board. The coaster was also lost. There were no survivors.

The selfless courage of the crew of the “Solomon Browne” is deeply moving. The Sea King pilot, Lt Cdr Smith, who witnessed the rescue attempt, said, “The greatest act of courage that I have ever seen, and am ever likely to see, was the penultimate courage and dedication shown by the Penlee crew when it manoeuvred back alongside the casualty in over 60 ft breakers and rescued four people shortly after the Penlee had been bashed on top of the casualty’s hatch covers. They were truly the bravest eight men I’ve ever seen.”

The faith of Christians looks to Jesus who gave his life that we might live. The focus is not on what we do but on what Jesus did when he sacrificed his life for our sins. Jesus said, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The Apostle Paul, who once fiercely opposed everything to do with Jesus, came to rejoice in him as the one who “loved me and gave himself for me.” One hymn says, “Jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God. He, to rescue me from danger interposed His precious blood.”