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THE EVEREST CHRONICLES #9
FORGOTTEN CORPSES
It was a long and horrible journey — a nightmare —
but now it's finally over. For six hundred pages, maybe, it's gone on.
Or maybe it's in your own life: tragedy and pain and heartache that goes
on and on and on. But then finally it's over as the final credits roll.
You're safe at home, safe with those you love. The dangers outside can't
get to you any longer. And the relief in the air is so very real, so tangible,
that you could cut it into pieces and clutch those pieces to your heart.
Have you ever felt like our lives are like that? For nearly two weeks
now, we've been on the slopes of Everest where in May of 1996 there was
nothing but heart-pounding danger. Part of the kick of it all for those
climbers was to know that their life was on the line, that death was just
a slip and a slide away. Author Jon Krakauer, in his pain-filled autobiography,
Into Thin Air, writes:
"It was titillating to brush up against the enigma of immortality,
to steal a glimpse across its forbidden frontier."
But you know, that was early on. On Tuesday, April
18, with their summit try still almost a month away, the Adventure Consultants
expedition was making its way up to Camp Two, a mere 21,000 feet up the
mountain. All at once Krakauer spotted a large object wrapped in blue
plastic sheeting right by the trail. It took a minute for him to realize
that it was a human body. "Who is that?" he asked Rob Hall,
the guide. Hall didn't know, but thought it might be a Sherpa who had
died three years earlier.
Two days later, as he was climbing another thousand feet up, there was
another body lying in the snow. The vintage leather boots seemed to indicate
that this climber, probably a European, had been lying there for maybe
10 or 15 years. And all of a sudden, this expedition up Everest wasn't
as much fun. People were dead up there; bodies were lying in the snow.
Relatives back home wouldn't see their loves ones again. And the horror
of this mountain began to eat at the climbers.
The May 1996 season was a devastating tragedy. Rob Hall, the guide, perished
on the mountain. Andy Harris died up there. Doug Hansen, Krakauer's best
friend. Yasuko Namba. Scott Fischer. Eleven went up; six came down. It
was a nightmare that just wouldn't go away. In fact, for several days
after this happened, the rest of the group was stuck there at Camp Four
— with their leaders gone. The guides were dead! How would the clients,
the non-pros, ever get down to safety? Would the raw, blanching fear ever
go away? Would the blizzard simply keep them pinned on the highest mountain
in the world until it took their lives one by one?
I mentioned yesterday how Jon Krakauer finally made it down to Base Camp
and literally exploded into tears. He'd never cried like that since childhood,
but he was so emotionally ruined by now. Finally, a whole week after the
tragedy, he was helicoptered down to the safety of Kathmandu. Everest
no longer had him in its icy clutches; in a sense, he was home.
In his book, he writes about checking back into the Garuda Hotel, where
this expedition had begun two months earlier. His mind was spinning with
guilt and lingering terror even though he was now safe. Late that Friday
afternoon — and I share this without commenting or condemning — Krakauer
handed a Nepalese boy some rupees and got himself a huge, homemade kind
of joint. Collapsing in that darkened hotel room, he smoked that cigarette
until the room was spinning. Then he lay on that bed and sobbed until
he thought he would die: out of relief, shame, overwhelming gratitude
that he was safe . . . but experiencing still unbelievable despair that
close friends were lying dead at the very peak of Everest while he was
safe in Kathmandu.
I guess this whole planet's history has been a kind of Everest experience,
really. It's dangerous here, isn't it? People die all around us; the bodies
are everywhere. There are accidents and heart attacks and kids murdered
in drive-by shootings and rapidly filling cemeteries. We go to funerals
of people younger than we are . . . and we're scared.
But you know, the Bible tells us about a day when we're finally home.
There's going to be a helicopter come and rescue us. There's going to
be a hotel room where we can check in and be safe. God promises us a day
when the terror will come to an end. Of course, we'd expect to find all
of this in the last chapter, the final credits. Sure enough, it's in the
book of Revelation, just a few paragraphs from the end:
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was
no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down
out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her
husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling
of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people,
and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every
tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying
or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'"
I don't know if you've ever heard those words before,
but I hope today they ring with special meaning. We're safe at last! We're
in the city where there are no storms, no avalanches, no more losses of
friends. How in the world could our friends be hurt when they're with
us in the city where God lives? No one can die there! We've checked into
the Hotel of Heaven; we're Home!
You know, Christians have been preaching this for a pretty long while;
I know that. But friend, that doesn't mean it's not true. We've been on
the slopes of Everest battling the storms and the ice and the losses for
a longer time than we thought, but that doesn't mean this journey doesn't
end. No, it means the end is closer than ever before. The choppers are
warming up. Soon we're going to be home.
But here's just one more thought. Verse four talks about God wiping away
those tears, that anguished explosion of sobs. So many of our friends
are dead; there are bodies strewn all over the icy mountains of this ugly
old planet. What can God do about that?
Our writer/producer, David Smith, heard a beautiful sermon at camp meeting
this summer by his cousin, Lee Venden, whose dad Morris Venden is often
quoted here on the Voice of Prophecy. And this was a sermon about the
resurrection, about the promise that those we love will be raised up in
the end.
And Lee describes the fear we have of dying. You know, when we're alive
we can cry up to God: "Don't forget us! We're struggling down here;
don't forget to rescue us!" And we have a certain confidence that
He hears us.
But what about when we die? We can't keep crying out from the grave; death
has a way of silencing even the most eloquent Christian believer. It's
scary to see the end coming, and then to slip into the shadows. What's
going to happen if we can't keep shouting out reminders to heaven? Who
will cry on our behalf? Will heaven forget about us?
But friend, that's the most beautiful message of the Christian faith.
Jesus doesn't forget! Someone you love may have died. Their voice was
stilled, perhaps a long time ago. And even though you have faded pictures,
the images, the memories, the faint trace of perfume, the distinctive
laugh . . . it's all starting to slip away from you. But never from Jesus!
Let me say with all the force I can muster: Jesus isn't going to forget.
Bodies lying in the snow on the mountain might be anonymous; no one remembers
their name. But Jesus remembers.
And let me tell you how God is going to wipe away our tears when we end
this horrible Everest expedition that went so wrong. It's simple: He brings
these people back to us.
I don't know the spiritual state of Rob Hall, that guide who gave his
life for others on Everest on May 11, 1996. I don't know what was in the
heart of Mr. Andy Harris, who, despite his own weakened condition, went
back up the mountain in a terrible blizzard to save two others. But I
do know this: my Savior Jesus Christ knows where those two men are, lying
in the snow at 28,000 feet. He has His eye on them; He knows their hearts.
Bodies may decompose or — in the subzero temperatures of Everest, they
may not decompose. It doesn't matter to Jesus. He has a perfect record
and He can bring back those He's redeemed.
There's a wrenching little P.S. to this Everest story, where Russian guide
Anatoli Boukreev went up into the storm again one day later, still determined
to rescue his boss, Scott Fischer. But he was dead. With a heavy heart,
Boukreev covered Scott's face with his backpack as a kind of shroud, collected
his camera and pocketknife to take back to Fischer's son, and went back
down.
A week and a half later, Ed Viesturs from the IMAX team came across his
body as well. Fischer's wife had asked him to bring back a wedding band,
but Ed couldn't bring himself to dig around the body. Instead he sat there
alone with his friend for a few minutes. "Hey, Scott, how you doing?"
he whispered through his agony. "What happened, man?" And then
he too left, feeling the horrible finality of the goodbye, without even
the keepsake he'd come to collect.
And yet we have the words of Jesus: "I am
the Resurrection and the Life." And His eternal promise: "I'll
never forget."
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