So Close to Home
We were so close and so eager to be home again, but there we were listening to the tails of a Scottish couple sitting across from us. We had traveled over 8,000 miles by air from Kenya to Chicago and yet here we were 402 miles away from home and stuck in O’Hare airport.
We were told that one member of the flight crew, a flight attendant, was late coming in from Atlanta and we could not board until that person arrived and got on the plane. So there we were with approximately 150 other passengers waiting for one person. Until she arrived, no one who was flying on that aircraft was going anywhere. I found myself thinking that I’d serve the coffee or tea or whatever it was they were serving on that plane! Just let us go home! Just 400 miles to go after a long adventurous journey and one little detail kept us from going home.
I thought certainly in this huge airport with all these planes flying in and out of there, there must be one flight attendant somewhere who could step in and fill that slot! Did it have to be that specific one? Certainly someone else to fill the place so we could go home! But we were again told that it wouldn’t be long, just another 10 minutes.
Then we were told that the flight attendant’s plane had indeed landed but all the gates were full and there was no place for her plane to offload its passengers. This huge airport with all its equipment and you can’t get this one person off a plane? When we landed in London, there wasn’t a gate available and all 300 or more of us were all bussed to the terminal! You can’t put up a set of stairs and give this woman a ride? And we waited longer. Our nearly 30 hours of traveling and sitting in airports really starting to take it’s toll on us.
Finally, finally, the flight attendant arrived to the cheers of the passengers waiting to board. Now we could finally go home! We quickly boarded, found out seat and fell asleep as we headed home. The lights of Nashville never looked so good as when we approached the city. We were home!
Throughout the whole Old Testament, God’s people had been waiting for the one, the Messiah to come and restore their lives to them again. They must have wondered why it was taking so long. They must have wondered why God was allowing them to undergo the things they had to suffer, and yet they waited for the One. There could be no others.
When Jesus was born, some knew that He was the One. Simeon held the child in his arms and said, “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” Simeon knew that Jesus was the One and now he could go home.
This morning we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the One and Only, who came to this earth, who suffered and was brutally crucified and buried. We celebrate the fact that not only did Jesus come, but He rose again so that we can all someday conquer sin and death forever and go to our eternal home.
Pastor Jerry
April 2007
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