Last Friday, an American F-15E fighter jet was hit by incoming fire and crashed inside Iran. One of the two crew members was quickly rescued. According to the Wall Street Journal, what came next was “one of the most complex search-and-rescue efforts for the US Air Force in enemy territory in decades.”
The second airman, a weapons system officer, had ejected and sent a message over his radio, saying, “God is good.” He was injured but hiked up a seven-thousand-foot mountain ridgeline and hid in a crevice. While evading capture, he activated an emergency beacon that allowed US forces to locate him.
Iranian officials issued a public plea for locals to find him, offering a reward of $60,000 (equivalent to a multi-million-dollar salary in the US). To confuse Iranians in pursuit, CIA operatives spread a false message that both crew members of the downed jet had already been found. US aircraft also dropped bombs on convoys approaching the area where the airman was hiding.
Sunday morning, President Trump announced that the “highly respected colonel” had been rescued and is safe. Mr. Trump plans to speak to reporters about the operation today at 1 p.m. ET.
Why would the US go to such lengths to recover a single pilot?
The answer says much about our nation’s past and our collective future.
Russian soldiers bribe their officers to stay alive
Since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began, Russian forces have suffered nearly 1.2 million casualties. Soldiers on the front lines must bribe their officers to avoid being shot by drones or other soldiers, tied to trees to freeze, or denied medical care. Many who refuse to pay are tortured.
During its war with Iraq, Iran marched child soldiers into fields to clear mines and prepare the way for Iranian tanks. In 2016 alone, the Islamic State sent 1,112 Muslims to their deaths in suicide attacks. During World War II, Japan ordered more than 3,800 pilots to fly kamikaze missions.
In the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, the Chinese army killed at least ten thousand of their own citizens. By some estimates, Iranian authorities massacred more than thirty thousand fellow Iranians in last January’s protests.
By contrast, the United States is founded on the creedal conviction that “all men are created equal” and endowed by our Creator with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In a world dominated by monarchies, dictatorships, and theocracies, this was a declaration never before embraced by a nation.
What was the source of this insistence on individual liberty?
A great film depicts a great partnership
My wife and I saw A Great Awakening last Friday and highly recommend it to you. The film tells the story of the unlikely friendship between deist Benjamin Franklin and evangelist George Whitefield, a partnership that proved pivotal to America’s founding.
Whitefield preached gospel messages all across the colonies, calling massive crowds to repentance and faith in Christ. Franklin printed, at significant personal profit, Whitefield’s sermons and other materials regarding his ministry.
And, according to Franklin, Whitefield’s message changed the nation that America became.
In one scene, Franklin explains to a British general the colonies’ frustrations with the crown: “Across that ocean, an entire generation of Americans have been awakened to believe that liberty is not a gift given to them by a king, but a right given to them by God.” Years after American independence, as Franklin and his grandson are discussing Whitefield’s work, the grandson asks whether Whitefield played any role in the American Revolution.
Benjamin Franklin replied, “He was the Revolution.”
“They worshiped him, but some doubted”
On this Monday after Easter Sunday, what was Jesus doing? Luke reports that “until the day he was taken up” to heaven, “He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:2, 3).
“By many proofs” can be literally translated “by a great number of evidences and convincing signs.” Why did Jesus’ followers need such persuasion?
Matthew tells us, “when they saw [the risen Christ] they worshiped him, but some doubted” (Matthew 28:17). This was because, as the brilliant theologian N. T. Wright noted, the concept of a body rising from the dead never to die again was foreign not only to Greek thinkers but to the Jews as well. As a result, even though Jesus frequently predicted his resurrection (cf. Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:19), none of his followers expected it.
The women returned to the tomb Sunday morning to finish burying his body (Luke 24:1). When they told the apostles that they had met the risen Christ, “these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them” (v. 11). So Jesus delayed his return to paradise until his followers understood his resurrection to be not a myth, legend, or tradition, but a fact that changes everything.
Only when they knew him to be alive and experienced him personally as their Lord could they advance the global mission he intended for them.
“Too legible characters not to be understood”
The same is true today.
George Whitefield reminded colonial Americans, “The fall of man is written in too legible characters not to be understood: Those that deny it, by their denying, prove it.” He also observed, “The sinner can no more raise himself from the deadness of sin than Lazarus, who had been dead four days, until Jesus came.” By contrast, Whitefield declared, “It is God alone who can subdue and govern the unruly wills of sinful men.”
To return to the story with which we began, we are all trapped behind the “lines” of our spiritual enemy and cannot rescue ourselves (Romans 3:23; 5:12). This fact explains the urgency and the grace of Easter.
If, like the early disciples, you doubt the reality of the resurrection, let me encourage you to examine the evidence for yourself. If, however, you believe that Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, let me ask you: When last did you experience him as your living Lord?
If Jesus is alive in our lives, he can act in ways a dead teacher never could. He can forgive our sins and save our souls. He can heal our bodies and comfort us in our grief. He can empower us by his Spirit and use us for eternal significance. He can set our hearts at liberty and bring our nation to himself.
All Jesus has ever done, he can still do. What he did through his first followers, he can do through you and me this day. But we must experience his risen presence if we are to be catalysts for the change our fallen culture needs so desperately.
George Whitefield was right:
“We can preach the gospel of Christ no further than we have experienced the power of it in our own hearts.”
Have you “experienced the power” of the risen Christ yet today?
Quote for the day:
“Christ is worth all, or he is worth nothing.” —George Whitefield
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