It was test day in Calculus 202 during my second year of college. This was the semester I realized I was in far over my head. I was drowning in an ocean of knowledge while surrounded by surfers riding the biggest waves and scuba divers plunging the greatest depths.
I stared nervously at the empty pages of the blue book on my desk. The final exam allowed three hours to answer one question. My academic future depended on my mathematical solution to the assigned dilemma.
“Neil Armstrong is stranded on the moon. Using your best knowledge, explain how you would bring him safely back to Earth.”
My hand was shaking; my head was spinning. I gulped and glanced around.
Tanaka was already scribbling furiously—probably already exchanging calculus equations with the stranded astronaut. Thomas was writing equations with his security blanket draped over his head like a spacesuit.
Benazir was leaning over her blue book as if she were guarding all the gold in Ft. Knox. Her father never faced this problem while ruling Pakistan. My sidekick, Charlie, wore a tiny astronaut helmet to cover his egotistical grin.
I followed my childhood instruction for handling times of stress. Take a deep breath and think.
I sighed and wrote:
Step 1: Tell the stranded astronaut not to panic. (That was a little ironic for me to write since I already needed a restroom break to avoid an embarrassing classroom reaction to the stress.)
Step 2: Call NASA. If they do not answer, try calling Shuttle Service. If unavailable, call on individuals to use their own rocket to pick up astronaut’s Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Call it Uber.
Step 3: Build a very tall ladder. This had been tried once before in Babel, but the project was never finished.
Step 4: Bake lots of cookies for fuel. Astronauts need energy, and besides, cookies make everything better.
Step 5: Set up a large trampoline in the Earth landing area, just in case Neil Armstrong tries to take “one giant leap for mankind.”
Step 6: Send me on a rescue mission with Tanaka’s calculations. He acts as if he knows what to do. I hate it that his writing is too small for me to read and copy on this blue book.
Step 7: If all else fails, transport my friend, Jeff Buzz Lightyear, to join the stranded astronauts. He will be of absolutely no assistance. However, his constant sarcastic agitation will force Armstrong to generate lunar distance from him. The greater the distance, the closer to a solution.
I put down my pen. I looked at my blue book and decided this was not rocket science, but at least I had a plan.
The next semester, at the advice of my English major roommate, I was studying the writings of Samuel Johnson. He made some memorable philosophical statements, but he had no clue when it came to moon rescue missions.
As I mentioned in the previous Winsday Wisdom, the Apostle John was entrusted with eternal truth written in simple expressions. He shared the most important things in life in ways a child can understand. There is a lifetime of lessons about love, faith, and hope which serve to lead us to join in the simple to understand but infinitely indescribable magnitude of the wonderful confession of Thomas, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
I first heard about John’s book as a child when I learned one verse. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
I understood I was stranded in a place where I was doomed. There was no hope of human calculations or strategies to rescue me. Like the Moses led Israelites who disobeyed in the wilderness on the way to God’s Promised Land, I had no hope of help to escape the deadly poison of unbelief (Numbers 21).
God already had a rescue plan. It was so simple I could understand it as a child. I now stand amazed at the divine love whose width, length, height, and depth exceed human understanding.
Jesus enlightened the inquiring Nicodemus about God’s rescue plan for sinners trapped on a dying planet. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:15). “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die…on a cross (John 12:32-33).
The crowds asked, “Who is this Son of Man?”
I am jumping from my chair with my hand raised in the air. “Teacher, Teacher, I know! The answer is in John 3:16!”
Here is a brief outline of God’s rescue plan:
- For (purpose clause explaining why Jesus must be lifted up on a cross)… God (main subject)…so loved (main verb)…the world (object of God’s love).
We tend to think of the word, so loved, as a description of the magnitude or intensity of God’s love. God soooooo loved us with our arms spread wide from infinity to infinity.
That is true but the “so” word means “in this manner.” It emphasizes the specific way of HOW God loved’ In the original Greek, the word “so” begins the sentence…For in this manner, God loved the world..
The world in this verse is not the created heavens and earth in Genesis. This world exists as the people who do not know God, the sinners. God loved ME. God loved YOU.
- that God gave His one and only Son. Jesus is the GIFT of God’s love…not something God was required to do or something we deserved.
- So that (next purpose clause as fulfillment of the initial purpose)…Whoever (anyone without exclusion who wants God’s gift)… Believes (accepts and trusts God’s promised gift)…Should not perish (will not be eternally lost or destroyed)…But have (contrasting conjunction of a different eternal destination and experience)… everlasting life (with and like Jesus forever).
THIS IS A RESCUE MISSION EVEN A CHILD CAN UNDERSTAND AND BELIEVE!
IT IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. IT IS A LOVE STORY!
God showed His great love for us by giving Jesus to die in our place so we can live forever in God’s immeasurably limitless and infinitely endless love.
I was not sitting in a college calculus test. I was a young boy at home with my parents when I told them I understood God had a plan to rescue me. I knelt beside a green leather-torn footstool and told God I believed Jesus came to save me.
What happened in that moment was real and life changing.
As a young boy, I tried to picture God’s love like the snow falling softly, covering everything with a forgiving blanket. I went outside and made a snow angel. (Yes! That is the closest my actions ever got to being angelic!)
Lying in the cold, I stared at the sky, feeling small but somehow special. I whispered, “Thank you, God, for loving me this much.”
As the years passed, I gained a greater comprehension of the magnitude and wonder of God’s gift. God’s love is bigger than any mistake, any mess, any worry, any problem.
I still seek to grasp a better understanding of how God’s love never ends, never gets frustrated or angry, never grows tired, and never lessens.
God gives hope for stranded souls! His divine rescue mission is far greater than the hypothetical Moon rescue or the real-life Apollo 13 challenge.
This is the fullness of God in the simplest understandable terms. It is a children’s story to be read again and again even when you already know the ending!
LOVE FIRST...LOVE MOST 