Mayday
Jesus and his disciples left Galilee and
went up to the villages near Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along, he
asked them, “Who
do people say I am?” “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and
others say you are one of the other prophets.” Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Peter replied, “You are the
Messiah.” (Mark 8:27-29)
Do you think
it’s hard to walk in the dark, or navigate a room with the lights off and your
eyes closed? Try flying a small plane at 15,000 feet. Blind. Jim O'Neill did. Not that he intended to, mind you. The
sixty-five-year-old pilot was forty minutes into a four-hour solo flight from
Glasgow, Scotland, to Colchester, England, when his vision failed. He initially
thought he’d been blinded by the sun, but he soon realized it was much worse.
"Suddenly I couldn't see the dials in front of me. It was just a blur. I
was helpless." His plight gave real meaning to the phrase, "flying
blind." Turns out, he'd suffered a stroke. O'Neill groped and found the
radio of his Cessna and issued a Mayday. Paul Gerrard, a Royal Air Force Wing
Commander who’d just completed a training sortie nearby, was contacted by air
traffic controllers and took off in O'Neill's direction. He found the plane and
began talking to the stricken pilot.
The commander
told O'Neill what to do. His instructions were reassuring and simple: "A
gentle right turn, please. Left a bit. Right a bit." He hovered within
five hundred feet of O'Neill, shepherding him toward the nearest runway. Upon
reaching it, the two began to descend. When asked if he could see the runway
below, O'Neill apologized, "No sir, negative." O'Neill would have to
land the plane by faith, not by sight. He hit the runway but bounced up again.
The same thing happened on the second attempt. But finally, on the fourth try,
the blinded pilot managed to make a near-perfect landing.
Can you
empathize with Mr. O’Neill? Most of us can because we've been struck, perhaps
not with a stroke, but with a divorce, a sick child, or a cancer-ridden body.
Not midair, but mid-career, mid-semester, mid-life. We've lost sight of any
safe landing strip and, in desperation, we’ve issued our fair share of Mayday
prayers. We know the fear of flying blind. Unlike O'Neill, however, we hear
more than just one voice. Lots of voices besiege our cockpit. Talk show hosts
urge us to worry. New Age gurus tell us to relax. Financial advisors forecast a
downturn. Preachers tell us to pray. Professors tell us that’s nonsense. Lose
weight. Eat low fat. Join our church. Try our crystals. It's enough to make you
want to cover your ears and run away. And what if you follow the wrong voice?
What if you make the same mistake as the followers of self-help guru, James
Arthur Ray, did?
He promised to
help people achieve spiritual and financial wealth, suggesting that by
following his advice they could "double, triple, even multiply by ten the
size of (their) business." But he gave more than just financial counsel to
the more than fifty clients who crowded into his 415-square-foot sweat lodge in
Sedona, Arizona. They had paid him between $9,000 and $10,000, apiece, for a
five-day spiritual warrior retreat. The participants had fasted for thirty-six
hours as part of a personal spiritual quest, then ate a breakfast buffet before
entering the sauna-like hut that afternoon. People began passing out and
vomiting, but Ray urged them to stay in the lodge. Two hours later, three of
them were dead.
The voices. How
do we select the right one? In fact, a form of the question was asked by Jesus
himself: "Who do you say I am?" (Mark 8:29) He had led his disciples
into Caesarea Philippi. The region was to religion what Wal-Mart is to shopping – every variety in one place. A center of
Baal worship. An impressive temple of white marble dedicated to Caesar. Shrines
to the Syrian gods. Here Jesus, within earshot of every spiritual voice of his day,
asked his followers: "Who do people say I am?" They replied,
"Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of
the prophets." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you
say I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Messiah." (Mark 8:27-29)
When it came to
expressing the opinions of others, the disciples were, apparently, pretty
chatty. Everyone spoke. But when it came to this very personal question, only
Peter replied. Why only one answer? Was Peter so confident and quick that the
others had no time to speak? Or did Peter drown out the replies of everyone
else? Perhaps no one else spoke because no one else knew what to say. Maybe
John ducked his eyes; Philip looked away; Andrew cleared his throat; Nathanael
kicked the dirt and elbowed Peter. And maybe Peter sighed. He looked at this
lean-faced, homeless teacher from Nazareth and pondered the question, "Who
do you say I am?" The question probably wasn’t a new one for Peter.
He must have
asked it a thousand times: the night when Jesus walked off the beach into the
bay without sinking; the day he turned a boy's basket into an "all-you-can-eat"
buffet; the time he wove a whip and drove the swindlers out of the temple. Who is this man? Peter had probably asked
the question. So have millions of other people. All serious students of Christ,
indeed students of life, have stood in their personal version of Caesarea
Philippi and contrasted Jesus with the great philosophers of the world and
heard him inquire, "Who do you say I am?" "You're a decent
fellow," some have answered. After all, if you can't like Jesus, who can
you like? In Jesus, the poor found a friend, and the forgotten found an
advocate. Jesus was nothing if not good. True-blue. Solid. Dependable. Everyone's
first choice for a best friend, right? Sure, if you want a best friend who
claims to be God on earth.
For being such
an affable sort, Jesus had a curious habit of declaring his divinity. His
favorite self-designation was Son of Man. The title appears eighty-two times in
the four gospels, only twice by anyone other than Jesus. First century
listeners found the claim outrageous because they were acquainted with its
origin in Daniel 7. In his visions, the prophet saw “One like the Son of Man,
coming with the clouds of heaven ….” (Daniel 7:13) “That’s me,” Jesus was
saying. Every time he used the phrase “Son of Man,” he crowned himself. Would you
want a guy in your neighborhood making such claims?
And what about
his “I Am” statements? “I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12) “I am the
bread of life.” (John 6:35) “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)
And most stunning, “Before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58) By claiming the
“I Am” title, Jesus was equating himself with God. Jesus also claimed to be
able to forgive sins – a privilege only God can exercise. (Matt. 9:4-7) He
claimed to be greater than Jonah, Solomon, Jacob and even Abraham. (Matt.
12:38-42; John 4:12-14; 8:53-56) Jesus said that John the Baptist was the
greatest man who had ever lived, but implied that he was even greater. (Matt.
11:11) Jesus commanded people to pray in his name. (John 14:13-14) He claimed
to be greater than the temple (Matt. 12:6), and greater than the Sabbath.
(Matt. 12:8) He claimed his words would outlive heaven and earth (Mark 13:31),
and that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him. (Matt.
28:18-20) Does a decent guy say things like that? No, but a demented fool would.
So maybe Jesus
was a megalomaniac – on par with Alexander the Great, or Adolf Hitler. But,
honestly, could a madman do what Jesus did? Look at the devotion he inspired.
People didn't just respect Jesus, they liked him; they left their homes and
businesses and followed him. Men and women alike tethered their hope to his
life. Impulsive people like Peter. Visionaries like Philip. Passionate men like
John, and careful men like Thomas. And when the men had left Jesus in the
grave, it was the women who came to honor him – women from all walks of life,
from homemakers to philanthropists. And people were better because of him.
Madmen sire madmen: Saddam Hussein created murderers, Joseph Stalin created
power addicts, and Charles Manson created wackos. But Jesus transformed simple,
blue collar workers into the authors of history's greatest book, and the founders
of its greatest movement.
Christ stunned
people with his authority and clarity. His was not the mind of some deranged
wild man, or demented fool, or deceiving fraud. Some have said so. Some believe
that Jesus masterminded the greatest scheme in the history of humanity, that he
out-Ponzied the swindlers and
out-hustled the hucksters. If that were true, then billions of humans have been
fleeced into following a first-century pied piper over the edge of a cliff. So,
should we crown Christ as the foremost fraud in the world? No, not too quickly.
Look at the miracles Jesus performed.
The four gospels
detail approximately thirty-six miracles and reference many more. He multiplied
bread and fish, changed water into wine, calmed more than one storm, and restored
sight to more than one blind man. He healed contagious skin diseases, gave
steps to the lame, purged demons, stopped a hemorrhage, even replaced a severed
ear and raised the dead. Yet, in doing so, Jesus never grand-standed his
miraculous powers. Never went for fame or profit. Jesus performed miracles for
two simple reasons: to prove his identity, and to help his people.
Had Jesus been a
fraudster or trickster, the Jerusalem congregation would have died a stillborn
death. People would have denounced the miracles of Christ. But they did just
the opposite. Can you imagine the apostles inviting their testimonies? "If
you were a part of a crowd that he fed, one of the dead he raised, or one of
the sick he healed, would you please share your story." And share they
did. The church exploded like a grasslands wildfire in Ramona. Why? Because
Jesus performed public, memorable miracles. He healed people. And he loved
people. He paid no heed to class or nationality, past sins or present
accomplishments. The neediest and loneliest found a friend in Jesus.
Could a lying
sham love that way? If his intent was trick people out their money or worship,
he did a pitifully poor job of it because he died broke and abandoned. So, what
if Peter was correct? “You are the Messiah.” (Mark 8:29) What if Jesus really
was, and is, the Son of God? If so, then we can relish this truth: we never
travel alone. True, we can’t see the runway. We don’t know what the future
holds. But we’re not alone. We have what Jim O’Neil had: the commander’s voice
to guide us home. So heed it. Issue the necessary Mayday prayer and follow the
guidance that only God can provide.
Grace,
Randy
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