It is a sad story, that, in the end, turns out miraculous for one man. In the Gospel of John, we read of a man who had been laying by the pool of Bethesda for a long time. We don’t know exactly how many years he had stayed there. What we do know is that he had been an invalid for 38 years. The story goes that when the waters of the pool were stirred up, the first person with a sickness to enter the waters, was cured of his disease. So, day after day, individuals with diseases and sicknesses lay around the edge of the water hoping that they would be the next one to enter the water first and be healed. But there is this one guy. He was so sick that he needed someone to help him into the water. But, alas, he had no one. This is how he described his situation; “I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” No one to help him walk into the miraculous water. No one to help him dive deep into the life-altering liquid. No one to carry him to the restorative reservoir. No one. That is the sad commentary on this singular man. He is alone. He needs help. He is…not unlike us. You see, we all need help. Even the Beatles recognized this truth.
Too often people think they can handle everything on their own. However, this simply is not true. Lone Ranger needed Tonto, Fred needed Barney, Starsky needed Hutch, Laverne needed Shirley, Gilligan needed the Skipper, Batman needed Robin (though he would never admit it because, after all, he is…Batman). The epidemic of “I can handle this”, is especially troublesome for those at the top of their game. Fortunately, this was not the case in what has gone down in history as the “Miracle on the Hudson.” Everyone is familiar with the story of how, on January 15, 2009, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger landed US Airways 1549 on New York’s Hudson River after a flock of geese took out both engines. Needing everything to fall perfectly into place to survive a water landing, Sully guided the Airbus 320 to the only available place to land a large aircraft – the ice-cold Hudson. In the film depicting the event, Sully (played by Tom Hanks) is criticized, reprimanded, and raked over the coals for his decision. The computers, we are told, recorded that he could have made a safe landing at two different airports, instead of dumping the plane into the water. In one of the greatest scenes in the movie, Sully challenges the findings of the computer and the simulator scenarios. Fed all of the information that Sully had at his disposal, the “crews” in the simulators find that, indeed, Sully could not have made it safely to the airports. Sully’s decision is validated. The whole movie is worth the look on the faces of the safety “experts” as they realize that Sully made the right decision. Afterwards, one of the panel members says to Sully,
“I can say with confidence, that after speaking with the rest of the flight crew, with bird experts and airplane engineers, after running all the scenarios and talking to each of the players, there is an X in this result. It’s you Captain Sullenberger. Take you out of the equation and the math just fails.”
Sully’s response is priceless, and a sign of a great leader;
“I disagree. It wasn’t just me. It was all of us. Jeff (Skiles, the co-pilot), Donna, Sheila, Doreen (the three flight attendants). The passengers, the rescue workers. Air traffic control, ferry boat crews and scuba cops. We all did it.”
Just before this scene, Sully is alone with Skiles. Sully tells him, “I am so proud of you. We did this together. We were a team.” Perhaps Sully foresaw what was about to happen – that he was going to be the face of something unheard of (some say miraculous), that is, landing an aircraft on water and saving everyone aboard. And he wanted his co-pilot to know that he could not have done it alone.
Sully needed help…and help showed up.
The invalid needed help…and help showed up.
In two separate scenes involving water and desparation, our lead actors (Sully, and the invalid) find themselves in need of critical help. Sully found his in the faces of those he mentioned in his reply to the safety panel expert – Skiles, the flight attendants, the rescue crews, air traffic controllers, etc. The invalid found his in the face of Jesus.
Just as all 155 people walked away from the landing in the Hudson, the invalid walks away from the pool. Neither story should have played out like it did. A plane doesn’t crash land in water with everyone walking away. An invalid for 38 years doesn’t stand up and walk away, healed of his disease by a few words of a stranger. But that is exactly what happened.
That line in the Beatles song rang true for both. “Help, I need somebody. Help, not just anybody.”
Sully had Skiles…and Skiles did not disappoint. With no one else to help him, the invalid relies on the Son of God…and Jesus did not disappoint.
Faith, Leadership, and History 