P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

ROOM IN THE LIFEBOAT FOR MORE

Have you ever had a close encounter with a needless death? A sick child could easily be made well by the right medicine, but the parent can’t afford it . . . so the child dies. Legal dramas on TV explore the kind of controversial saga where parents refuse to allow their child to receive treatment because of religious concerns, and again, there’s the tragedy of a preventable funeral.

Moviegoers around the world remember one chilling cinematic moment when a massive ocean liner named Titanic has just disappeared beneath the waves. Talk about needless! But then the camera slowly pans up and out, and you see this vast ocean of drowning people thrashing about in the frigid water. It’s 2:20 in the morning, and literally hundreds of men, women, and children are still alive in the icy Atlantic. A fireman named George Kemish was lucky enough to be on Lifeboat #9, and to him it sounded like “a hundred thousand fans at a British football cup final. To Jack Thayer, lying on the keel of Boat B, it seemed like the high-pitched hum of locusts on a midsummer night in the woods back home in Pennsylvania.”

Those frozen recollections come from the marvelous book by Walter Lord, A Night to Remember. And in Chapter Eight, the author takes us from lifeboat to lifeboat for a life-and-death moment of decision. In Boat #5 a Third Officer named Pitman heard the cries of the dying. For some reason there were men in that lifeboat . . . but only 40 people in a boat that could hold 65. His heart moved with a sense of duty, he cried out: “Now, men, we will pull toward the wreck!”

And you know, almost immediately, a woman begged the crew not to go back. “Why should we lose all our lives in a useless attempt to save others from the ship?” she cried. And after a few minutes of debate, the men feathered their oars and stopped rowing. They sat there drifting among the ice floes as the cries of the condemned slowly faded into silence.

In Boat #2, they debated . . . and finally said no. The boat was just 60% full, but it stayed safely out of the way of danger. In Boat Six, things were different, though: the ladies begged Quartermaster Hitchens to go back to the spot where Titanic went down. Mrs. Lucien Smith’s husband was in the water; others had mates struggling in the freezing depths as well. But Hitchens described to them a “vivid picture of swimmers grappling at the boat, of No. 6 swamping and capsizing.” And another boat, built to hold 65, and rattling nearly empty with just 28, languished on the perimeter of the disaster. In Boat #1, a lookout named George Symons appealed to the passengers’ sense of honor. Again, the consensus was no. Too risky. And a boat designed to comfortably rescue 40 bobbed high in the water with just 12 people in it.

Almost with a touch of anger, Walter Lord concludes with these heart-rending words:

“In boat after boat the story was the same: a timid suggestion, a stronger refusal, nothing done. Of 1600 people who went down on the Titanic, only 13 were picked up by the 18 boats that hovered nearby.” And then this quiet condemnation: “As the cries died away, the night became strangely peaceful.”

You may remember, in the Cameron film, how actress Gloria Stuart, playing the aged centenarian, Rose DeWitt Bukater, describes how the lifeboats drifted away, along with their consciences. And she gives this poignant conclusion:

“Seven hundred people in the boats had nothing to do but wait: wait to die, wait to live, wait for an absolution that would never come.”

It’s maybe ironic that, at the end of the film, this old woman describes the fictional Jack Dawson as the man who saved her. “In every way,” she adds. Because as you and I think about this Christian mandate we call witnessing, telling others about Jesus, that word “saved” is core to the discussion. Believers are convinced that this entire planet is a capsizing ship, so to speak. The world is sinking into permanent lostness . . . but this time, there are plenty of lifeboats. All of them have a Calvary cross on them, and there’s plenty of room. The only question is: will God’s people row those ships over to where the drowning people are needing the help.

A couple of years ago, in my own Adventist denomination, the lesson study curriculum was on this issue of sharing our faith. It was entitled “Witnessing: A Christian Fundamental,” and the editors pulled an old soundbite from the archives, dating back to before Titanic. Ellen White, one of the denomination’s founders and influential prophetic voices, writes this in one of her Testimony books:

“Our work has been marked out for us by our heavenly Father. We are to take our Bibles and go forth to warn the world. We are to be God’s helping hands in saving souls – channels through which His love is day by day to flow to the perishing.”

And of course, Scripture says the same thing. We mentioned yesterday Jesus’ explicit commission to His disciples: “Go and YOU make disciples as well, baptizing them, teaching them to obey all things.” Jesus certainly considered His own journey to this distant planet a rescue mission; in His own words He tells us:

“The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

Bible reference tools send a New Testament reader from Luke 19:10 back to the 34th chapter of Ezekiel, where we find this same “sinking Titanic” motif described more aptly in a lost-sheep setting. Notice:

“As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after My sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. . . . I will search for the lost and bring back the strays.”

Well, friend, this is what Jesus will do. This is what God the Father, the dad in the parable of the prodigal son, will do. But what, then, about us? What is all of this for us? Simply this: if we believe in the Christian message, if we believe it’s possible to be saved – and by extension, possible to be lost – then we are exactly and precisely like the men and women in the lifeboats . . . only infinitely more so. Because drowning among the ice bergs of April 13, 1912 were people who, at best, would only live a few more short years or decades anyway. Yes, some babies died that night, but also senior citizens. We remember that wrenching film scene where Mr. and Mrs. Isador Straus, the millionaire founders of Macy’s, huddled on their bed, waiting to drown together, as the waters rushed into their stateroom. And the failure of those in the lifeboats to come back cost them a few years of life. But a person who loses his salvation . . . loses everything. Loses all eternity. And it’s up to me and to you to do what we can to invite them to join us in the lifeboat where there’s plenty of room.

Now, friend, the “do what we can” is something you have to sort out in your own way. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. But there are a million ways that a Christian can hand a life preserver to a drowning person, and there are a million ways NOT to.

Think of a recent airline flight – and I probably know this scenario about as well as anyone. You’ve got four hours on that plane, and you desperately crave the solitude and mental relaxation that a trip from LAX to Chicago’s O’Hare can provide. And no, you don’t need to feel like you’ve got to forfeit that entire four-hour haven of rest in order to “witness” to the teenaged girl sitting in the seat next to you. I’m as attracted to the “hibernate, bury-your-face-in-a-LONG-book” option as anyone. But is it possible that, just as the plane is landing, you could take the last ten minutes, and get into a conversation? Where are you headed? Oh really? Your fall semester in the Windy City? I had a cousin who attended Wheaton, which is near Chicago. Yeah, it’s a great Christian school there; he really liked it. And there, with “Christian school,” you have your opening. And before you undo your seatbelt and get your bag from the overhead compartment, you can at least say: “Well, best of luck. I hope the Lord really blesses you this semester.” And just that little bit of “lifeboat” has been offered. Not explicit; not a complete ride to dry land, but the first hint of salvation. You do what you can.

Or you have neighbors who don’t know anything about Christianity. And next time Marie Callendar’s has its cheap-pie-of-the-month sale, you get two instead of one, and drop the extra off at their place. That gets you ten minutes of visiting, and before you say goodbye, you get a chance to mention how Pastor’s sermon at church last weekend just really bailed you out. What a blessing to know that God cares even when things are just awful at work. Etc. And you know, a friendship born out of several pieces of pie can take you to the point where you really can invite a friend to join you at church. It happens that way all the time, and it always will.

Yes, there are times – desperate, drowning times – when you need to shout the name of Jesus at full volume. But ask God, in all times and places, to help you to sense the joy of the lifeboat, and the daily opportunities to help fill the seat next to yours.