Jesus and Multnomah Falls, Oregon
In the state of Oregon there is a beautiful waterfall that I hope to see one day. It actually has two major steps, an upper falls of 542 feet and a lower falls of 69 feet, with a gradual nine foot drop in elevation between the two. It is known as Multnomah Falls, and is the tallest waterfall in the State of Oregon. There is a Native American legend about how the falls came to be. A tribe was infected with a deadly disease, and several of them were dying. At a meeting of the elders of the tribe, an old medicine man remembered that his own father had said that a pestilence would hit the tribe, and that the only way they would survive would be if one of the young maidens would throw herself voluntarily off a nearby cliff as a sacrifice.
The elders discussed this for a long time, until finally the chief declared that no young maiden would die—a wise decision since he had a young daughter himself. That young daughter was pledged to be married soon to one of the young men in the tribe. When that young man fell ill, that young Indian maiden, daughter of the chief, sacrificed herself to save the life of the man she loved by throwing herself off the cliff.
According to the legend, when the chief found his daughter’s body, he wept bitterly and asked for a sign from the Great Spirit that his daughter’s sacrifice had not been in vain. At that moment, the legend says, water began to fall from the top of the cliff, forming what is known today as Multnomah Falls. The legend also says that under the right conditions, you can see the daughter’s face in the waterfall.
Of course, we know that waterfalls are formed by snow melt or rainfall or streams flowing down from the mountains, and not because some young Indian girl threw herself off a cliff. But what is not a legend is that all of us in the human race are tragically and fatally ill with sin, and that One had to give Himself voluntarily as a sacrifice for our sin. Only One was qualified, and that One was Jesus.
--Rocky Henriques, www.timothyreport.com
