When were you last sung to in an airport? I was so treated after missing a flight from O’Hare Airport, Chicago, on November 18, 2006. But I must not get ahead of my story.
For months I had been looking forward to meeting with the Kansas City part of our family for their Thanksgiving week. The first leg of my trip was completed on time and now, after a flight change, my anticipation was increased as I neared Kansas City.
However, when I reported to the departure gate, I learned my flight was rescheduled from another gate, some distance from where I was standing. “If you hurry,” said the attendant, “you might just make it.” I was neither in the mood, nor the condition, for a one-man marathon. So I arrived at the newly assigned gate just in time to see my plane being pushed onto the tarmac. It would soon be airborne without me.
In retrospect, I have thought I was like so many people today, spiritually speaking. They know the price of their sin has been paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ when He died for them on the cross of Calvary, but they have spent a lifetime standing at the wrong gate. They have never accepted the One who said, “I am the door, by Me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture” (Jn. 10:9). The gospel writer also said, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16). Many people know these truths, but have never realized they applied to them. They may think they are good enough to get to Heaven and do not need to place their faith for eternal salvation in the Lord Jesus.
When the fog of disappointment began to clear from my mind, I learned the next flight was to leave at 8:40 pm. That meant I would have spent more than eight hours in O’Hare. “Oh, by the way,” the attendant added, “that flight is also full and you will have to go stand-by.” At that point in the festive season , I was not thinking of “Sugar plums dancing in my head,” but about the possibility of bunking down for the night in America’s busiest airport.
During the hours until flight time, I walked, read, ate, and held my own personal pity party. Eventually, however, more rational thinking prevailed, and I wondered what the Lord had for me in this experience. It was just about that time the gate attendant took her place behind the desk and turned on her computer. The list of stand-by passengers appeared on the public screen, and I was the first passenger named. Quickly, I told her my name was at the top of her standby list. “I can assign you a seat right now,” she responded. “I have several vacancies.”
With my boarding pass in my hot little hand, I returned to where I had been sitting to find a young woman in her early 30’s now occupying it. Fortunately, there was an empty seat next to her, and I asked if I might sit beside her. She replied, “Please do so.” In the light chatter of the next few minutes, she told me she was a grade school teacher, but was unhappy in her job. She did not tell me why.
Although in an unhappy situation, she wished to continue working with children and was thinking of training as a counselor for Hebrew children, maybe in Israel. Carefully and warmly, I asked if she was a Jew. “Yes, I am,” she responded. “O, I love the Jewish people and have several close Jewish friends,” I said. “We Gentiles owe the Jewish people a great debt. Jehovah-God, used unique men like David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and others to give us the Holy Scriptures. In my life, my greatest friend was a Jew.” “He was?” she exclaimed. “Yes. With all due respect, His name is Jesus.” She showed no surprise, and I continued, recalling my friend John McKimm, who serves the Lord with Friends of Israel, once saying to me, “Arnot, you must always build a bridge to reach the Jewish people.” But, there was no time for bridge-building, as our flight was scheduled to leave in a few minutes. Continuing the discussion, I said, “One of my Jewish friends was a neighbor in St. Catharines until he moved to Toronto. For some time I had wanted to give him a copy of the T’Nach”, (and at the sound of the word her eyes widened), “but I didn’t know how I could do it.”
“My answer came one Friday morning, as I was sitting in the barber’s chair and in walked my Jewish friend, Jack. We greeted one another and in the conversation that followed, he said, ‘Today’s my 82nd birthday, Arnot.’ I congratulated him and breathed a silent prayer to Heaven, thanking God that He was making it possible for me to give Jack a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures. Later in our conversation, I asked him if he would be home in the afternoon. ‘I’ll be home all right. At my age, we are always home.’”
My new friend was listening intently and, as I continued, I sent another SOS to Heaven for God’s help.
“At two o’clock I rang Jack’s door bell, and both he and his wife answered. After a brief greeting and more birthday congratulations, I said, ‘Jack, I have a birthday gift for you from Helen and myself,’ and I handed him the Word of God in a plain brown paper bag, as my friend John had suggested. ‘It’s a T’Nach!” he exclaimed. ‘I had one of these 30 years ago and loaned it to a guy who never returned it, and now to think, a Gentile has given me this one! I’m going to keep it in the family and pass it on to them when I die.’”
Now, the young lady’s interest turned to anticipation as she said, “I have my T’Nach in my bag. Would you like to see it?” “I would,” I replied. Reaching into her bag, she withdrew a very attractive copy of the Psalms of David in both Hebrew and English. She seemed surprised when I turned the back cover to open it, and that I knew it read from back to front. “May I read a favorite Psalm?” I asked. She quickly agreed and I found the 23rd. I held it so we could both read it together. The English version was beautiful and slightly different than our KJV, and I expressed my delight.
“We’ve read the 23rd, ” I said, “Let’s look at the psalms on either side of it. Turning to Psalm 22 and verse 16, I read, “They pierced my hands and my feet.” “David could never say that of himself, could he? In his day the accepted method of execution was by stoning. Piercing was the Roman form of capital punishment in the first century, and so David must have been speaking prophetically of someone in his family tree who would be pierced, or crucified. I believe he was writing about Jesus.” With continuing interest, we turned to Psalm 24, verses 7 and 8 to read, “Lift up your heads, O you gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this king of Glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” “As a Christian,” I said to her, “I believe this psalm foretold of the day when Jesus, God’s Son, returned to Heaven as my Messiah, and that He is there tonight.”
Returning to Psalm 23, she told me the special paragraph at the bottom of the page in bold Hebrew type was a song a family might sing after this psalm had been read at their meal table. “Would you like me to sing it for you?” she asked. “Oh, I would!” I replied. So, softly and meaningfully, this dear Messiah-searching Jewess sang to me among the crowd of people at Gate K-6.
As she finished, I expressed my pleasure and told her I knew why I had missed my flight. Handing her my business card, I said I would be delighted to hear from her sometime. She said, “My name is Melissa.”
The gate attendant announced, “Those seated in Section 2 should now be boarding the aircraft for Kansas City.”
Together we walked down the jet way, a delightful young Jewess hoping to find her Messiah, and me, a forgiven Gentile, so thankful I had found Him. Please pray for Melissa.