Job 6; Psalm 25; Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 12:9-21
“Well, we’re lost!” The young pilot looked over at the older man on the secret mission who was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. “We’ve only about 15 more minutes worth of fuel, so I’m taking us down so we’ll have a chance when the engines stop.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” The older man was wearing a business suit and a fedora hat, but there was something that marked him as a pilot, too. Maybe it was the confidence, maybe the way his still sharp eyes scanned the horizon.
There were eight on the B-17. There were the two businessmen and another passenger returning to his unit in Australia, and there were the five crew members. They had taken off from Hawaii about 13 hours earlier and had flown some 1800 miles, but they were lost in the South Pacific, and they’d been lost for the last couple of hours. And now they were going to crash into the cold water without any sign of land visible.
As they descended, the crew put blankets and pillows around them to handle the shock of the landing. Three rafts were stashed, ready to be deployed. Emergency rations were put at the ready. The older man grabbed some handkerchiefs and about 60 feet of rope. They sent out one final message and then they crashed into heavy waves. They were in the ocean, with a thousand feet of deep water below them and no land in sight.
Almost immediately, water began pouring into the plane. Everyone quickly climbed out on a wing, got the rafts into the water and then looked around for the emergency rations they had piled up. They were gone, lost in the crash, deep in the water. They climbed into the rafts and watched the plane sink away into the dark depths.
They took inventory. Most of them had been injured in the crash. They had five oranges. They had bailing buckets, a bible, a map, some pencils and knives and pistols, the clothes on the their backs, three fish hooks, but no bait, and they used most of the 60 foot of rope to tie the three rafts together.
It was October of 1942, and the weather at night was cold, while the days were hot and dry. They ate an orange every day – a small orange shared between eight adult men. Sharks swam just below the surface, and small fish followed the rafts, but they wouldn’t touch the unbaited hooks, nor were the fish the least bit interested in bits of oranges used as bait. The men were sunburned and salt covered their bodies. There was nothing to drink, because you can’t drink salt water, and now there were no more oranges. They tried shooting at seagulls, but those gulls stayed too far away and finally the guns were too rusty to use because of the salt. The men were depressed and sad, they were afraid – almost certainly they were going to die – and they still had no idea where they were or which direction to try to travel. They were tired, hungry, thirsty, sunburned, and itchy. They were lost with nothing but the ocean around them. Their fear had turned into hopelessness.
Finally on morning of the eighth day, the men resorted to discussing how they might cut off one man’s toes and use those toes as bait. The older man changed the subject and had one man read some scripture, and then they prayed for a miracle. And then, they settled back to nap in the hot mid-day sun. The older man pulled his fedora hat over his face.
And suddenly, he felt something on his head that weighed more than that hat. As he looked out from under the hat, he could see the other men had frozen in place and they were looking at whatever was on his hat. The older man slowly, ever so slowly moved his hand carefully up by his ear and then in a flash, he grabbed the seagull by the feet and with his other hand he wrung its neck. That seagull quickly was plucked and became a meal for those men and its guts became bait that allowed them to catch a couple of small fish.
And that evening, rain came and the men captured enough water for several days.
They weren’t out of the ocean yet – it would be more than two weeks more before planes flew by, they would wave to the planes, and they would be found and rescued, but God had rescued them already.
And the older man?
He’d been in tight places before – he’d even been critically injured in a plane crash a year earlier. His body was so badly injured then that ambulance drivers took away dead bodies from the crash before they took him to the hospital. But he recovered then and he had many years to live onward, living until 1973 when he was 83 years old.
He lost 40 pounds during those weeks at sea – he never really liked the sea – for he was one of the most famous pilots in American history, the man who had shot down more enemy planes than any other American in the first World War, a man who became the president of Eastern Airlines, the man known as Eddie Rickenbacher.
Eddie survived because he had hope. He had crashed before and lived, and He knew that his government would be looking for him. He knew his government had enough power – ships, planes, men – to find him. He had faith in his government – and he had faith in his God, for he knew his God truly owned all of those ships, planes, and men, and his God controlled the government – and the seagulls.
Rickenbacher’s original secret mission was to visit several American bases and then make recommendations to the generals and admirals in Washington. When he returned from his time on board the rafts, he had some very specific recommendations about the emergency equipment, water, and food that should be stored INSIDE every raft, recommendations that saved countless lives during the war. And the government was able to use the good news of Eddie’s rescue to lift everyone’s spirits. It had an effect which was much stronger than the original plan made by the men in Washington. God used this crash to save countless other men as the war went on.
And a legend grew up how in Eddie’s later years, every Friday night, Eddie went down to the pier near his home in California and he took a bucket of shrimp and fed the sea gulls, saying, “Thank you. Thank you.” to the sea gulls… and to God.
In our lives, we have many times when we are filled with fear. Sometimes, it is a fun-type of fear, like when you come to the top of the roller coaster and it begins to head down the other side. Sometimes, you know the fear can be handled because you have a wonderful protector around, like a child being tossed up and down by his dad.
But then, there are other times. As Job said,
“If only my anguish could be weighed
and all my misery be placed on the scales!
It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas—
no wonder my words have been impetuous.
(Job 6:2-3)
There are times when all you have is a mind-numbing fear, a fear that everything bad is going to happen, a fear that the world is collapsing in around you, a fear that there is nothing you can do to keep the evil away and you know you are going to be hurt, injured, and it is the end of everything good.
It may be like the Friday I saw people being fired and laid off at one company I worked for. In fact, I was asked to help fire and lay off a couple of people and then I walked back into my office and saw that the company president had returned to my desk a book I had lent him some weeks before and at that moment I knew that my name would also be called for me to come into the personnel department. And very soon, my name was called and I was laid off.
I’ve seen this sort of fear on family members faces at the emergency rooms. I’ve seen it in people’s eyes when they’ve been told by their spouse that their marriage is over. I’ve seen it in the faces of people I’ve had to lay off when my business could no longer afford to pay them. Eddie Rickenbacher saw this fear in the faces of the men on those rafts in the South Pacific.
But there is a way to trade fear away and put hope in its place.
The first thing is to realize that the world around us is indeed an evil and frightening place. It surrounds us like a huge ocean and there is nothing visible except that world ocean, that ocean of murky trouble, that world where dangerous sharks swim just out of sight, an ocean filled with salty corrosion that gradually destroys our souls and bodies, a place where a huge dangerous creature might suddenly come up out of the depths and destroy us or our family.
But none of that really matters, because, like the men on the raft, we-who-know-Christ are not truly part of that ocean of despair, but we sail on top of that world, floating in the bright sunshine because we are creatures of the air and the light. Like a lighthouse, the Lord will lead us to safety. David understood this when he wrote our Psalm, particularly this verse:
My eyes are ever on the Lord,
for only he will release my feet from the snare.
(Psalm 25:15)
Just as the seagull was caught by Rickenbacher, our feet are often caught. Will we be dragged down, torn apart and destroyed? It will happen if we are left to our own strength, for the evil one who has caught us is much stronger than we are.
But we don’t have to worry. We are not seagulls caught by men. Instead, we have the LORD, who can and will release our feet from the one who snares us. As Paul wrote to the Romans, “we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”
No, while the world is like a big ocean that can swallow us up, we know that our Lord is looking for us and He will find us if we will do our part and wave Him over to our rafts floating on that terrible ocean.
But are we important enough to be searched for? How do we know we are good enough for Jesus to rescue us?
Jesus went into a synagogue one Sabbath day. The Jews of the day considered that you could not work on the Sabbath, and healing people was considered work.
On that Sabbath morning, Jesus found a man with a shriveled up hand. It was not regular size, it was damaged, it was twisted together, it looked dried up. If Jesus healed this man, it would get Jesus in trouble – big trouble. And this man with his shriveled up hand wasn’t anyone special. He was like all people – he had done some good in his life – and he had done some bad in his life. Yet he couldn't work well with his damaged hand. But he had two things going for him that day…Jesus was there…and the man believed that Jesus could help him.
Jesus cares about all people, not just the very good people. So that morning He healed the man’s hand. And Jesus got into big trouble. Matthew tells us that “…The Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.” Pretty rough stuff for helping another person.
But Jesus cares about everyone. He went so far as to sacrifice His life for us. And Jesus’ Father controls the entire Universe. Jesus’ Father controls absolutely everything He wants to control. And so: “I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”
What are your fears? What fears would you like to toss deep into the ocean and replace with the hope that comes from knowing that Jesus loves you and will protect you?
Now there is one very important thing we have to remember. Jesus doesn’t always act as quickly as we want – Eddie Rickenbacher and his men were stuck on those life rafts for 24 days. Jesus doesn’t always do things the way we would like – one of the men on the rafts died while they waited to be rescued. Sometimes losing a loved one provides us with lessons we need to learn. But Jesus does have our best interests at heart. The difficult thing is that sometimes our best interests require us to stay on our own rafts, drifting lost on the ocean of the world, without rescue, without hope until we turn to Jesus for help - and even for many days afterwards.
And then, Jesus will use the entire situation for our good and the good of the people around us, just as Rickenbacker's ordeal lead to many other lives being saved. Sometimes we won’t understand what good was served by the troubles we go through. Sometimes we find out many years later. Sometimes we won’t find out until we reach Heaven and talk with Jesus face-to-face. But you can be sure that Jesus is ready to move in and help you when you find yourself drifting alone on that ocean of despair – and you ask for help from Him.
Remember this, though. Jesus is polite. He will not step in until you ask Him to step in. He won’t send you a seagull until you ask Him for help. But when you ask, admitting that you aren’t nearly as capable as He is, He will show up for you. When you need Him…not necessarily when you want Him. For trading fear for hope means that you haven’t been rescued yet. Hope is a state of looking toward the future. Hope is when we believe that the rescue will come someday. We have no need of hope once we've been rescued.
But we still float on the world's ocean, waiting to die. And we have hope because of this. Rest in God alone. Jesus has already told us that we who follow Him have eternal life. Jesus died for us…and came back to life, showing the entire world that it can be done when God wants it to be done. Our fate lies in the hands of God – not in the hands of Fate or Luck or ourselves.
So when you are floating on the world’s ocean, surrounded by sharks, dying of thirst and hunger…remember that it is a loving God who gives us rain…and airplanes….and seagulls….and that is how to turn your fear into hope.
Jesus wanted us to remember a few things after He left us. He wanted us to remember His teachings. He wanted us to remember His Resurrection. And just as that seagull's body was broken up and eaten uncooked by Eddie and his friends, just as the seagull's blood was dripping on the rafts that day - Jesus wants us to remember that He gave up His body and blood for us. For each of us.
And so He told us, that as often as we eat bread and as often as we drink wine or grape juice, we are to remember Him. "This is My body, which is broken for you...This is My blood, which is shed for you."
No comments:
Post a Comment