Skip to main content

Plane Crash Christianity

The passengers on the miracle crash landing of US Airways Flight# 1549 that landed in New York’s Hudson River recently evidently experienced a phenomenon that I’m sure many Christian air travelers have thought about once or twice. The high likelihood that when faced with imminent death, many people will involuntarily lose their veneer of independence from God, and call on His name for…salvation, mercy, miracles, repentance or all of the above. To be certain, many of the people who were on this US Airways flight recalled the praying that took place on that brief flight prior to impact with the river. This was captured by a passenger in this CNN.com news story below:

After he (the pilot) told us prepare for impact, it was pretty evident we were not going to make the runway." At first, it felt like the plane was gliding, Berretta said, as if no engines were working."People started praying, and there was a lot of silence, and the realization that we were going in was really hard to take in at that moment," he said. CNN.com
This illustration is simply a vivid example of an ironclad truth: despite the fact that many people live as if there is no God, intuitively, they know that there is. They know deep down (though many are resistant to admit it) that God controls whether a plane stays in the air or not. He is all powerful. He controls whether they will live or die. As a Christian, I cannot explain God’s reason for saving those people that day, while many others have died in hundreds of plane crashes. Our inability to explain that makes Him no less God. Our all-powerful creator is worthy to be worshipped regardless of our own limitations in explaining His actions. The learned academics would do well to humble themselves and remember this. I wonder if there were any on this flight?

God is a very merciful God who is not willing that any should perish, but that all would have everlasting life through Christ Jesus. The great thing about a near death experience is that it likely brings some into a true permanent worship experience with God through His Son Jesus Christ. Why through Jesus Christ and not just with God alone? Because the Bible is very clear that God will not accept worship any other way: This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time. (1 Timothy 2:3-6 NIV)

I’m certain that several of those passengers on US Airways Flight# 1549 became permanent worshippers of God since January 15th, 2009. It is likely they would not have done so at any other time in their lives had this incident not occurred. This may be the reason why God wrote this in the Bible: ...the day of death is better than the day of birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. (Ecclesiastes 7:1-2 NIV) US Airways Flight 1549 tells us a lot about our human nature, but it tells us even more about a merciful God who will use any means to reconcile us back to Him.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Were they Saved?

Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many… (Hebrews 9:27-28 NIV) My wife and I were talking about a celebrity who we learned had died recently. One of my first thoughts (as is customary) was “were they saved”? Did that person accept that Jesus died for their sins so that they could live forever in Heaven? Though neither my wife nor I could know the real answer to that question, if we went by the “evidence” of how that person lived their public life, then it appeared highly unlikely that a salvation conversion would have occurred in their life. If so, then their death was indeed a tragedy. Acceptance of Jesus is indeed the difference between life and death (for eternity). Look at this diagram below (taken from a previous publication by author Bruce Wilkinson). The size of the circle denotes the average life span of our present life on earth. The length of the line denotes the first .000...
Read more

Funerals for the Unsaved or Unbelievers

I am not a leader of a church, but I oftentimes wonder how does one lead a funeral service for someone who dies without knowing Jesus Christ as Lord ? Admittedly I have not been to many funerals in my lifetime, though they are appearing to come more frequently lately, but the fact is that funerals are held daily throughout the world and as such this is a pertinent question to someone just about every day.   I’ve been to the funeral where the person lived a fairly routine life, taking care of their families and other responsibilities as best they could, paying taxes and doing the average things that we as human beings do on a consistent basis. They however had no visible relationship with God through His son Jesus Christ. When this person dies, the surviving family members are oftentimes left scrambling trying to find a person and a place to officiate the funeral services – generally because the deceased did not have a regular church that they attended. Funeral homes sometimes ...
Read more

God's Sunset

I happen to be driving home this evening around 8pm and was enjoying myself listening to a song I really like (“Sunrise” by Simply Red). As I was driving along, I came around a slight bend in the road, and was overcome by the view. There straight before me in the twilight of the evening was this awesome scene of thunderstorm clouds in between clearing in the sky and just behind all this was the most beautiful sunset that cast a Godly glow on the whole scene. What an awesome God we serve! A God that by His words created the incredible beauty of this natural scene…the sun, the clouds, the sky and even the talent of singer Mick Hucknall of Simply Red the words of who’s song was (for me) a perfect background to this awesome scene. Ok it was a sunset, but I didn’t care. God’s scripture is full of so much truth: Now no one can look at the sun, bright as it is in the skies after the wind has swept them clean. Out of the north he comes in golden splendor; God comes in awesome majesty. The Almi...
Read more