The plane was carrying 90 passengers and 5 crew and quickly climbed to an altitude of 24,000 feet. 23 minutes after take- off there was an explosive noise in the roof of the fuselage which lead to a catastrophic explosion and decompression of the cabin that ripped away much of the roof in the front section of the plane. Miraculously and with great skill the pilots of the plane were able to land plane 10 minutes later in Maui. 65 passengers were injured and one flight attendant lost her life.
The picture with this blog was taken shortly after the plan landed. Air crash investigators immediately began their work. The cause of the catastrophic explosion was traced to metal fatigue caused by corrosion. There was a failure of the adhesive used to seal joins in the aluminum sheets of the fuselage that allowed water to seep in.
One small crack. One small crack in a plane that no one could see lead to a catastrophic failure. Everything looked good on the outside. There was no reason to doubt the plane’s air worthiness; it all looked good.
Jesus told a story of a Father and two sons. The ‘bad son’ – the younger son – rebels against his father and squanders a third of the family fortune on wild living in a far country. All the while his older brother stays home, faithfully sticking by dad and working hard. He is the good son. But after his younger brother returns, and after his Father welcomes him back with open arms into the family – the cracks that were always there start to appear and a catastrophic explosion eventuates.
In our study this week we are going to explore an often missed twist that Jesus tells in the story. The drill-down point of this story is this: "Reconciliation and salvation always costs someone something." As we will see this week, salvation really isn't free...it was very costly to the true older brother.
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