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E-MAIL TO EPHESUS
#2
IMMERSED IN A NEW IDENTITY
Was Todd Beamer afraid when he and others determined
to ‘roll' up the aisle of flight number 93? He was a Christian man; he
was ‘in Christ' on that dark Tuesday morning. ‘Yea, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.' Were those words
real?
It may now be the most well-known call to arms since
"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes." These six
words have gone around the world now many, many times. Here they are:
"Are you guys ready? Let's roll." As millions of us know so
painfully well, that was said by Mr. Todd Beamer, age 31, to his fellow
passengers on board United Airlines Flight 93, just before they thwarted
the hijackers who were planning to fly the plane into a high-yield target
in Washington, D.C. . . . probably the White House or Congress.
On three planes that day, passengers had little or no time to know fear.
The jets they were in became instant fireballs as they plowed into the
World Trade Center or the Pentagon. But on Flight 93, passengers had almost
an hour to be afraid. To make cell phone calls. To hear that three other
planes had already crashed. To know that almost certainly they were going
to die.
How must it have felt for Todd Beamer, young Christian that he was, to
look up that 110-foot aisle leading to the cockpit and face death that
Tuesday morning? And to know that Lisa would have to raise David and Drew
and their unborn child — a supportive world knows that Morgan Kay Beamer
was born on January 9, 2002 — without a dad in the house? In fact, that
expression, "You guys ready? Let's roll," was something Todd's
3-year-old son, David, liked to say whenever the four of them were going
out the door for a family outing.
We're beginning a new radio project here in the book of Ephesians, a passage
I'm sure Todd and Lisa studied many times in their seven years of marriage.
And right in verse one we find three words that rival "Let's roll"
for life-changing power. Here they are:
"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the
will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful IN CHRIST JESUS."
That's actually a very common Bible expression, and
maybe we've unfortunately gotten to the point where we glaze over when
we read it. Verses one and two of this epistle are essentially a preamble,
and maybe we tend to see it as: "Grace and peace to you from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, blah blah blah, wherefore, therefore,
forsooth, and amen." In other words, let's get to the first story,
Paul. Let's cut to the chase and get to the meat . . . and the concept
of "the faithful in Christ Jesus" is like the "Dearly beloved"
at the start of a wedding. Just frosting on the cake.
But let's think more about that expression "in Christ Jesus."
We mentioned yesterday the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries for Ephesians,
written by Dr. Francis Foulkes, and he has this to say about verse one:
"Wherever the Christian may be," he writes, "in whatever
difficult environment, threatened by materialism or paganism, in danger
of being engulfed by the power of the state or overwhelmed by the pressures
of non-Christian life" — or by armed hijackers, shall we add? — "he
is in Christ."
And there you go. On that doomed airplane Tuesday,
September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was IN CHRIST. He was a Christian man,
a born-again man who was absolutely secure in his relationship with Jesus.
Was he in a "difficult environment" that morning? Of course
he was. Was he in danger of being engulfed by evil, by terror? Yes. Was
he about to be overwhelmed by satanically inspired forces? Yes. But was
he IN CHRIST? Friend, that is exactly where he was. And from the security
of THAT, safe in the midst of overwhelming danger, he made the decision
he did.
There was an incredible Newsweek report about Todd and the other heroes
on Flight 93, by Karen Breslau, Eleanor Clift, and Evan Thomas. "A
band of patriots came together to defy death and save a symbol of freedom,"
they write. But then they tell us about Todd Beamer. Was he afraid? Actually,
yes. Nobody wants to die, and even though Todd was calm and matter-of-fact
as he talked on the AirPhone with Lisa D. Jefferson of GTE, he was scared
of perishing on that plane. Maybe you've heard about how this man, who
was safe in the arms of Jesus, quietly recited the Lord's Prayer with
Lisa. But right after For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory forever, amen, he cried out: "Jesus help me!" Yes, he
was afraid. Several times in his 15-minute call he cried out for His Savior.
But then they said the 23rd Psalm. Yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. A man
named Phil Bradshaw, at home in Greensboro, North Carolina, on the phone
with his doomed flight-attendant wife, Sandy, could hear, in the background,
Todd and others quietly reciting. And then those six incredible words:
"Are you guys ready? Let's roll."
And you know, it's at exactly a time like that when the raw power of Christianity,
the wonderful and terrible MEANING of "in Christ Jesus" is most
real, most evident. Deliver us from evil. Thine is the kingdom. The willingness
of this man and others to face death, to give their lives for others,
takes that expression, "In Christ Jesus," out of the realm of
unproven, mushy metaphor, and enshrines it forever in the hallways of
proven truth. Today Todd's widow, Lisa, faces the future because she is
"in Christ Jesus." She copes and she ministers and she writes
and helps coordinate the Todd M. Beamer Foundation Fund because she has
the assurance of reunion, of knowing that the heroes and heroines of Flight
93 are safe in the arms of Jesus and that every stolen day, every missed
Christmas, will be repaid by a God who never allows His children to be
cheated. Her husband died at 10:06 that Tuesday morning in a Pennsylvania
field near Shanksville, and the GTE employee, Lisa Jefferson, couldn't
keep her promise and call Lisa Beamer until Friday. Can you imagine what
it did for this young widow to hear how her husband had died a hero, had
died saying the Lord's Prayer? Had died IN CHRIST? It was "a real
uplift," Lisa told reporters. And she KNEW he was a saved, redeemed
child of God. She KNEW that he was safely in the care of heaven's vast
armies, that his place in God's kingdom was forever beyond doubt. Friend,
that means something. Check me on that . . . it means EVERYTHING.
Dr. Foulkes goes on to further demythologize that expression "in
Christ Jesus." Notice:
"This is not mysticism," he writes,
"but is intended to express the very PRACTICAL truth that the Christian,
if faithful to his calling, will not try to be self-sufficient, or to
move beyond the limits of the purpose and control and love of Christ,
nor will he turn to the world for guidance, inspiration, and strength.
He finds all his satisfaction, and his every need met in Him, and not
in any other place nor from any other source. This description of the
Christian's life is implied in the expression being ‘baptized into Jesus
Christ,' as baptism is the outward sign of entrance into such a life.
It also involves the truth that the Christian's corporate existence is
in the Body of Christ which is His Church."
Todd and Lisa had a place in that "Body";
they were faithful members at Princeton Alliance Church in New Jersey.
Their Christian lives, their existences, were all bound up in their daily
faith, their participation with other believers. It was practical; it
was week after week, sitting there in the pews, helping, sharing the load,
carrying around cell phones so you could call others and minister to them.
And friend, this is what is promised to all of us: "The faithful
in Christ Jesus." Listen, once you come to understand the all-encompassing
POWER of being in Christ Jesus, you WILL be faithful.
I'm very often thankful — and I don't say this to be at all critical of
churches with differing practices — but thankful to be part of a denomination
that baptizes new believers "by immersion." What a beautiful
and perfect metaphor, where you allow yourself to be totally enveloped
in the waves, to be entirely bathed in the water, covered completely.
The old life is gone: not just the sins, but the idea, the mindset, of
being self-sufficient, of getting strength from your rising job security
at Oracle Incorporated, of trying to have your needs met by some alternate,
worldly way. You are immersed, completely given over, to this new attitude,
this distant and better kingdom. No wonder Paul writes — I think, himself
in awe — to his fellow Christians in Corinth:
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, HE IS
A NEW CREATION."
It's as radical as that. And it turns everything on
Planet Earth upside down. Now YOU are the one in safety; your enemies
with their box-cutter knives — but without Christ — THEY'RE in mortal
danger.
I'm sure the surviving relatives of Flight 93, including Lisa, have to
still wonder: WHY? Why did God let this happen? Even the Christians. Why
my husband? Why my dad? My son? Why'd he get on the wrong plane? Todd's
father, though, David Beamer, turns it around with this answer:
"I've . . . asked myself many times why
was our beautiful son on that plane? We know why he was on it. The faces
of evil — those particular hijackers — THEY got on the wrong plane."
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