Sermon Details
- Pastor Name: Jonathan Cornell
- Date & Time: April 20, 2014 | 10:00am
Rick Elias got his life back to live all over again. This regular, everyday guy thought this was a day like any other. He was setting off on a business trip when all of a sudden there was a huge explosion, the cabin of the plane filled with smoke, the engine started to sound like a jack hammer and then went silent…. He could read the terror on the flight attendant’s face; this was the end. He heard the three words you never want to hear the airline pilot say, “Brace for impact.” The plane started to turn, and with it, his life.
Things can change in an instant. It’s not that he was afraid to die, but that he was sad, so sad. As he thought about the flight path this plane was on as it hurled toward the Hudson River, he began to think about the flight plan his life was on. As a relatively young man, he began to think about the priorities, the people, the experiences, and he didn’t like what he saw, and so he was sad.
As a matter of fact, Rick got his life back that day. He didn’t actually die because he was on US Airways flight 1541, captained by Sully Sullenberger who was miraculously able to redirect the plane, barely passing over the George Washington Bridge, and touched it down in the Hudson River.
In a Ted Talk Rick Elias gives, he says that he was given the gift of two miracles that day. “The first is that I survived. And the second is that I was given the gift to see into the future and to come back and live differently.”
It seems to me that’s what Easter is for us this morning. We get to look into the future and then have the opportunity to live life differently.
Download the entire transcript: Easter ’14 Luke 24 1-12
