Echoes Into Eternity - The Launch

 

All flights from an airport begin with a long takeoff roll down a runway or dirt strip, with the aircraft accelerating to liftoff speed (60 to 155 kts depending on the aircraft) in 12 to 65 seconds (depending on the weight of the aircraft). The next time you are on an airliner, start counting when the jet engines go to full power as you are lined up on the runway.

 There is slow acceleration at first, then as the speed picks up look out the window at the wingtip.  On a big airplane you will actually see it flex upward. The air moving over the top of the wing is going faster than the air passing under the wing, which creates a low pressure area on top of the wing.  When the speed reaches a point where the low pressure on top of the wing is great enough, the aircraft will gently lift off the runway. The sound of the wheels fade, and once again, you are amazed that something is happening out there that defies your imagination! Unseen forces are causing you defy gravity and be lifted up into the air!

 

On an aircraft carrier at sea, this process happens much faster. The start of the flight on an aircraft carrier is a most exciting event, because a steam catapult literally hurls the aircraft off the flight deck.

A steam catapult consists of a track built into the flight deck, below which is a large piston powered by steam that is attached through the track to a shuttle on top of the deck which is then attached to a bar on the nose wheel of the aircraft. When the steam is released, a bar attached to the rear of the nose wheel which is holding the jet to the steel deck releases, freeing the piston to accelerate the aircraft to flying speed (usually 160 kts) in about 3 seconds. The steam catapults which I used on the USS Coral Sea were 225 feet in length. On the USS Kitty Hawk and Enterprise they were 265 feet. That is a lot of acceleration in a very short distance.

 

It is an exciting moment for every Naval Aviator. After pre-flight inspection and engine start, the jet taxis into position and the deck crew attached the nose gear bar to the “shuttle” and the “hold back bar” to the tail. The ship turns into the wind for launch, getting at least 20 kts of wind across the deck. This helps attain flying speed faster.

The Catapult Officer gives a final visual inspection of the aircraft and orders the pilot to go to full power. Inside cockpit, the pilot shoves the throttles forward, lowers the cat grip and grasps it and the throttles (to prevent a throttle-back movement in the violent acceleration about to come). Next he moves all the controls to ensure full movement on the ailerons and elevators and rudder while checking all the engine instruments.

 When he is satisfied that the jet is ready to launch, he centers the controls, and salutes the Cat Officer standing in front and to the side of the cockpit. At night he flips on the aircraft’s external lights. Then the Cat Officer squats down (sometimes under the wing) and touches the deck, giving the signal for the Catapult Operator, who is standing over in the catwalk at the edge of the flight deck with both hands up, to fire the catapult. Meanwhile the Pilot and Bombardier/Navigator sit patiently- waiting tensely, knowing that something significant will happen in the next few seconds.

Boom! The Cat fires, and suddenly your body is jerked back into the seat; Your eyeballs are forced into the rear of your eye sockets; You are the rock in the slingshot, along for the ride of your life.

The deck rushes by below your wings and suddenly the steel deck rushes under the nose of the jet, and that steel gray color instantly changes to the deep blue color of the sea. By now your body is catching up with the 20 plus g-force acceleration, and you can reach forward and slap the landing gear handle up. At the same time the flight control stick between your knees comes alive, and you give a gentle tug back, pulling the nose to a climb attitude of 8 degrees above the horizon.

Assuming none of the cockpit instruments have come loose from their housing and are sitting on your lap (which has happened too often- sometimes resulting in fatalities), or nothing has come apart in the engine compartment (which happened to me one too many times!) and that all of the flight controls are still attached to the wings and rudder of the airplane, you are ready to accelerate to 400 kts, and begin your climb out and away from the ship.

Less than 10 seconds have passed…….

 

If something does happen to the aircraft on launch, or if the steam catapult malfunctions, it’s possible that your jet will not accelerate to flying speed, and you will end up flying ahead and landing in the ocean in front of the 90,000 ton ship that is traveling at a least 15 kts or more, propelled by four giant 28 foot propellers. All Navy aircraft have ejections seats for moments like this, and a quick tug on that yellow and black striped handle between your legs or over your head will ignite a rocket motor in the seat, which will fire you through the plexiglas canopy and up to an altitude of about 200 feet, during which time a parachute will deploy, giving you at least two swings in the chute before you hit the water.

At least that is the theory, and usually the ejection seats worked as advertised.  However there is that big ship bearing down on you that you must avoid and not get sucked up into a water intake or dragged down under the ship and into the giant props. Both things have happened to friends of mine.

Assuming you can get to your parachute releases and get away from the now “sea anchor” that is dragging you downwind, it’s time to look for the raft that was inside your seat and is now inflated and attached to you by a 12 foot cord. If you get into the raft and avoid that big ship bearing down on you, now it’s time to look for the helicopter that is airborne during all launches and recoveries.

Most of the time it all works, and the drenched crewmen are hoisted aboard the helicopter and deposited on the flight deck. I was on the deck of the Enterprise one night when my friends Wally and Van got down from the helo. They made it back aboard soaking wet.  

At night, catapult shots are especially exciting. Since you cannot really see the Catapult Operator fire the catapult. Your eyes are on the taxi director as you get lined up and attached to the catapult. Then the Cat Officer takes over and with his flashlight wands give you the “Go to full throttle” signal of waving one wand back and forth.

You advance the throttle, lower and grab the throttle cat grip, wipe out the controls, check the engine, hydraulic and electrical  instruments, grab the visual display indicator to ensure it is attached and won’t end up in your lap on the cat shot, and if all looks and feels good, turn on your exterior lights. Now you wait. And wait.

Suddenly you hear the cat fire. The jet lurches forward. The eyeballs get compressed in the sockets. The deck lights disappear under the wings and all you see is the deck end light rushing towards you faster and faster. Suddenly they are gone, and there is darkness below. Gear handle up, flight control stick back to a 8 degree nose up attitude, flaps coming up, visually checking instruments and no warning lights, readjusting your position on the ejection seat, and a smooth acceleration as your climb out. We are 5 seconds into the flight.

Quite the sensation! With no visual references to the horizon, it feels like you are being shot into a black hole.

 

Like an aircraft taking flight on a runway on land or steam catapult on an aircraft carrier, we must all have a launch to get airborne. As we noted in the last chapter, Jesus told Nicodemus that a ‘spiritual birth’ was required to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. I have noticed that this birth can sometime resemble the long takeoff roll on a runway or the rapid launch off a ship.

Some of us grew up in a Christian community, attended church, memorized Bible verses, and attended Sunday school and youth group meetings. Somewhere along that track, we either had a time when it became very real, or it remained a religious practice and eventually we walk away.

Somewhere down the road, we noticed the signs God was giving us that He is real, and desires us to become part of His Family, and we begin to ‘consider’ the realities of Jesus, the significance of His death on the cross to pay for our sins, and our future a ‘Christians’. God does pursue us, unlike all the world religions where we struggle to find our way to God.

Perhaps family members or friends have conversations with you, sharing their own experience. Your interest is piqued, and you begin asking questions to that guy who exists above the ceiling. You sense that those questions are being answered, and circumstances in your life as well as that invisible voice nudges you to a place where it suddenly becomes very evident that Jesus is Lord! That’s when we make a declaration to Him, and maybe to our friends. Suddenly we are aware that something significant has taken place.

This is the long takeoff roll. Laura and I both shared the lengthy process.

Then there is the student walking to class at a college on Oahu when suddenly a stranger asks him, “Do you know where you are going when you die?”

My friend Craig, responded “No.”

“Do you want to know?” asked this stranger, who was an Air Force officer named Dell.

“Yes I do.” Criag replied.

After a short conversation, dell asked Craig if he wanted to receive Christ as his Savior and Lord, to which Craig replied “I sure do.”

This is the catapult launch off a ship.

Craig went on the become an evangelist who brought many young people to the Lord on Oahu, founded Campus Crusade for Christ on Oahu with his friend Hal Jones, and eventually planted three churches on Maui, of which I became a member in 1982.

I have a Persian friend who has emigrated to Sweden who was invited to a meeting of Persians who have become Christians. Her husband wanted to go, but she refused to go to the meeting, instead staying in her hotel room. Suddenly the room filled with light, and a voice identified Himself a Jesus. This Muslim suddenly recognized the Lordship of Jesus and gave her life to Him.

Another catapult launch.

Her sisters came one by one to Sweden to try to convince her to not leave Islam, and when they returned home, Jesus appeared to each of them individually.

Whether is the long takeoff roll or the catapult launch, there is noticeable confirmation that something indeed has happened in your life. Here are a seven evidences:

 

The colors of the plants and sky are suddenly very vibrant;

All those things you heard in church about Jesus dying for your sins suddenly makes sense;

Life becomes more dramatic, as you realize that you are living in a spiritual world.

You sense that some outside force is nudging you, giving you thoughts that were never there, that are more others-centered;

You don’t mind spending time alone, listening and talking to God.

The Bible becomes an interesting book to read;

Words that you often used in your colorful. expressions disappear for your vocabulary, although once you have teenagers they seem to creep back in.

 

Although the methods of the launch may differ, the essence remains the same:

 

⁹ If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. Romans 10:9-10

 

We all must answer the question “Who is Jesus?”.

Not answering this question is in a sense answering it with a negative response.

We are told by others that He was a great teacher, a prophet, a confused rabbi, a philosopher, or as one of my new age friends on Maui told me,

“The first to recognize his christ-consciousness, which we all have and if we eat the right food, do good deeds and chant, we too can become God.”

I came to understand there is only three answers to the question “Who is Jesus?”.

He is a lunatic, who erroneously believed in his divinity, or a liar, who is attempt to deceive us, or he is in fact who He says he is, The Lord of this Universe.

Once we go through our process and have a personal encounter with Jesus, we make a declaration to Him, to ourselves, and whoever else may be listening.

“Yes Jesus, I believe that you are the Lord and my Savior. Your resurrection proves this. I have lived my life for myself, apart from you. Please forgive me of my sins and I invite you into my heart to be my Lord.”

 

Free will acknowledgement of who Jesus is;

Sincere repentance for not walking with God;

An invitation for Him to become the Lord of our lives.

 

When God hears this, He sees the sincerity of our words, and He decides to accept us into His family. In addition, He gives us His Holy Spirit so that we now have a connection between His consciousness and our own.

 And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. ¹⁴ The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. Ephesians 1:13-14

 On the Day of Pentecost, as recorded in Acts 2, Peter explained to the crowd who Jesus is. Here is their response and Peter’s instruction:

 

“So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!”
³⁷ Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”
³⁸ Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God.” Acts 2:36-39

 

Peter adds baptism as an additional ingredient, baptism, to the salvation experience. Making a outward expression of an inward experience is helpful to seal the deal with Jesus.

 Unfortunately there are many who attend our churches who have not fully understood the message of the Gospel. Like me in high school at the Reynoldsburg Methodist Church, they were not paying attention to the sermons given on Sunday, or the lessons given in Sunday School class. They have not had an experience with the Living God where it becomes personal. The Gospel remains in the realm of theory, to be explored at a later date.

 We see people like them all the time at any local airport. They walk through the hangers, inspecting aircraft. They wear a shirt or hat that has wings or an airplane. They talk about aircraft performance. They stop and watch an airplane take off and smile. They watch a landing and give a critique. They eat lunch in the restaurant, rubbing shoulders with that pilot who just flew in from Honduras.

But these are not pilots. They have never flown an airplane. They like the airport scene and all that goes with it, but they have never taken a course in aviation or signed up for flight instruction.

For the novice, they could appear to be experienced pilots, wearing all the gear, and talking the talk. But they are those poor souls who will never experience the joy and sometimes terror of taking your own aircraft off the ground, defying gravity, cheating death, and eventually landing safely.

We see the same thing at churches  around  town on Sunday morning.  Men and women who arrive nicely dressed, enter the building smiling, sit nicely through a program of songs and speech, and then depart for a restaurant for a delicious Sunday lunch.  They would appear to be Christians, followers of Jesus, dedicated to living their lives Monday thru Saturday for Him.

Then we encounter them at their place of business, and notice that they cut corners and charge higher prices like most others. We hear them in the locker rooms of our gyms, and realize they tell the same off color jokes that others do. We watch them having interaction with their children at playgrounds and school athletic events and hear derisive and abusive comments similar to other parents.

We are confused. 

We saw them at church on Sunday, but their behavior the rest of the week is very worldly and self-centered.

Who is a real Christian?

What do real Christians look like? 

How do they act in public and private?

Good Question!

 

Martin Loyd-Jones, a Welsh preacher and a leader in the English Evangelical movement of the 20^th Century, often said:

“I can tell a lot about a person’s spiritual condition when I ask them a simple question:

‘Are you a Christian?’

Many times I will hear a response like this: ‘Yes, I go to church and read my Bible.’

Other times I hear someone say: ‘Yes, imagine that. Me, a follower of Jesus.’”

 

The first response indicates a lack of an awareness of our desperate need for God in our lives. We probable think, like many church attenders in America, that if we follow God’s rule, show up at a meeting on Sunday, and read a few Scriptures here and there, then God will give us the life we deserve.

The second response indicates an awareness of self-centered living, our obliviousness or rebellion to God’s will for our lives, and the existence of a moment in time where our brokenness became apparent to us, thus forcing us to turn to God and accept his mercy and grace.

 It’s a process that sometimes takes years to play out. Jesus gives us a good description of this process in the life of a person who becomes a true follower of His.

 In the famous “Sermon on the Mount” recorded in Matthew 5, 6, & 7, He describes of what happens when a disciple realizes the effect of sin in his life and the lives of those around him, and is totally given over to the process of spiritual transformation.

 ¹When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. ²He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying,

³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

⁵“Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

⁶“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

⁷“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

⁸“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

⁹“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.                                                                                                                                       Matthew 5:1-9

 

Many view this passage as an idealistic view of what disciples should be, with a feeling of  “I could never become that.”  However, there are a few keywords in the original Greek language that help us understand the passage as Jesus’ audience received it. According to Dr. Spiros Zodhiates, the author of the “The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible” and a native born Greek, these keywords build upon each other and must be viewed in a “progressive” sense.

 

Let’s now place ourselves in Jesus’ audience and hear what the crowd heard in their cultural and linguistic context.

 

The word “Blessed” is “makarioi”, which is a poetic word that gives a sense of a “transcendent happiness of a life beyond care, labour and death” (The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament) and indicates qualities of God.

This word refers to the joy that is experienced by having a relationship with God and inclusion in His Kingdom.

 

“Poor in Spirit” is “ptochoes” which refers to a helpless person, who has no physical resources, and is unable to help himself. This is the first step in “Blessedness”- realizing our own brokenness.  It usually results after an encounter with God where we truly experience Him, but we go on living our lives for ourselves.

We experience the contrast of these two lifestyles: The glow of God’s touch in our lives, followed by the shallowness of self-centered living. After cycles of living with God, and then living for ourselves, we realize where we belong, but our inability to get there through our own power.  This is “ptochoes” in the spiritual sense. It is brokenness and humility. It is the first step to a complete surrender of our lives to God.

 

“Those Who Mourn” is “hoi penthoutes” which in this context means to lament and have sorrow for one’s sins as well as the sins of others. Recognizing the effects of living outside of God’s rule and its harmful and often disastrous results often takes formerly pleasurable moments and turns them into “Why was I so dumb” moments.

 

“Gentle” is “prautes”, which according to Aristotle, is the position between getting angry without reason, and not getting angry at all. In this context, prautes means “having anger at sin”.  One who is physically and spiritually bankrupt, and who has suffered the consequences of sin, and who mourns the effect of sin on his life and the lives of those around him, eventually becomes angry at sin.

 

“Hunger and Thirst” is “peinao” and “dipsao”, and according to Strong’s Lexicon means to crave ardently, to seek with eager desire and those who are said to thirst who painfully feel their want of, and eagerly long for, those things by which the soul is refreshed, supported, strengthened, which in this case is dikaiosyne or Righteousness.

Strong’s defines dikaiosyne as integrity, virtue, purity of life, rightness, correctness of thinking feeling, and acting. It’s like drinking a cup of cheap coffee that feels unpleasant on your palate after you have had a cup of high-altitude hand-picked specialty coffee. You only now want the best choice in coffee and life.

 

Merciful is eleēmōn, which translates kindness and goodwill toward those afflicted by sin, and indicates a desire to help. This is the attitude of one who has personally felt the affects of sin, is sorry for it, has become angered by it, and is now living his life in an active personal campaign against it.  “Eleos” (mercy) allows Christians to have compassion on the sinful, unsaved people around them, with a willingness to help them.  It is the heart of a missionary.

 

Pure of Heart is “katharos  kardia”, and indicates a purification by fire or the condition of a vine that has been pruned and is ready to bear fruit.  It is the result of this process of recognizing one’s own spiritual helplessness, and the sorrow for sin and anger at the effects of sin, combined with the desire to live a righteous life and having compassion for those caught up in sin.

 

“Peacemakers” (eirēnopoios) are not just those who stop fights, but rather those who bring the peace of God that they have experienced to those around who have yet to receive it. Once we sense the depth of our brokenness, the adverse effects of sin in our lives and decide to take an active stand against it, and we become aware of the struggles that others are having with these same issues, we have a natural desire to share that peace that we have in our lives now because of our personal relationship with God.

 

Understanding these characteristics of disciples in the context of the original language gives us a more realistic view of our own experience with God, as He opens our eyes to our own process of having God’s character become our character.

The “Beatitudes” are not a “high bar” that none of us can jump over! It is an accurate portrait of those of us who have truly decided to follow Jesus.  It is the starting point for true discipleship.

It is a description of True Humility!

 Anyone who pretends to be a follower of Jesus without this realization of his own brokenness, his sorrow for his sin, his decision to live life God’s way, his empathy for those around him who are affected by sin, and a desire to bring true relationship with God to all he encounters will soon realize that this is not a “pretend” game.   It is a very personal experience that begins at the depths of our humanity, and takes us to the heights of godliness.

It is the runway takeoff roll, the aircraft carrier catapult shot of True Discipleship!

 

 You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one.

You do not want a burnt offering.

 The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.

You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.

 Psalm 51:16-17 NLT