Flight
The flight was late again but finally the flight was called and the passengers began to board. The traveler showed his ticket and passport to the flight attendant and took his seat. After the flight took off and he was comfortable – he had a sip of water and said a short whispered prayer “Heavenly Father Thank you for life, may this flight be safe and may you continue to lead me to know you and love you more each day. In Jesus’ name I pray Amen.” took out his bible. John 4: 48 Then Jesus said to him, Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ This reminded him of the verse found in 2 Corinthians 5: 6-7 “So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight.”
He closed his bible and began to think. He thought about his faith journey up to this point in his life. He thought about the first time he decided that Christ was the Son of God and the master of his life at his Confirmation. He thought about his Sunday school classes and his involvement in the youth group as a teen. He even thought about his college prayer group and the good time that his group of five friends would spend praying and listening to God. His mind wandered back to the times and places where he would witness for Christ to his classmates and to strangers. Then he thought about the lure of success that had somehow made him forget his first true love – God Almighty. He knew that his faith had waned though the years. He knew that he needed to get back where he was once before to a place of trust and faith.
Outside the sky was bleak and a slight drift of snow was inevitable. The ground controllers were obviously freezing while directing the planes – it was not a pleasant day to be outside. It was a good time to take a few weeks off. He decided that this Lent he would deliberately get away from it all the business of life and even family, friends and everyone and everything else that he knew; to get to know God all over again. His Lenten discipline would be to travel physically, emotionally and spiritually with God.
He knew that this would be an uphill battle – faith to him was so fleeting … it took such little effort to believe that the plane that he was on could fly. It took no stretch of the imagination to think that special care went into designing the various parts and placing together the functional systems. Yet his faith couldn’t make the leap from believing that God was here urging him to ‘spring.’ Just as the original meaning of the Old English word Lent was spring – this spring season he needed to spring back into a deeper commitment and understanding of God.
After about an hour he noticed that an elderly lady on the other side of the aisle on the flight running her hands over the pages of a book. It only now occurred to him that she was visually impaired and reading Braille. Here he was wallowing in nostalgia and the lady on the side of him clearly could not see. He wouldn’t dare assume that he was in any way more fortunate than her because he could see and she couldn’t see. Yet her presence reminded him of the passage he was just pondering “… for we walk by faith, not by sight.” It made him think about the faith he would require to place things back in perspective if he ever lost his sight – but literally he had – he was fumbling along hoping to find some clear way back to God. He reasoned that he just needed to let go and to trust God. In the gospel that the traveler read this morning the Royal Official’s son was healed by faith from a distance – Jesus healed him with a word. The traveler opened up his bible again and read 50Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. 51As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. 52So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, ‘Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.’ 53The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So he himself believed, along with his whole household.”
The traveler decided at that very moment that he had all the faith he needed right now to believe that God is – even at the very present time – working in his life. The traveler closed his bible rested it on his lap. He put his head back closed his eyes and smiled – knowing that Jesus lived, healed, taught, died and was resurrected for the restoration of the entire world.
