Have you seen the Clint Eastwood movie, "Sully" staring Tom Hanks. It is the story of "The Miracle on the Hudson" and the craziness that followed for the pilots who saved 155 souls that day with quick thinking and sharp skills. The pilot, Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger and his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles. If you haven't seen it, you've missed out.
The National Transportation Safety Board investigation was grueling for the pilots. It shows Sully and Jeff listening to all of their reasons that they should have turned back to LaGuardia after a flock of geese took out their engines.
My brother has a favorite line from the movie: "Can we get serious now?" It is a clip worth watching.
Sully's point is that they, as humans, were experiencing something for the first time. No simulator can prepare a person for that moment when the unbelievable occurs. You have to make choices. Sully's choice saved 155 lives that day. He didn't crash... he made an "emergency water landing". It matters how you frame the scenario and the right response. In the case of US Airways Flight 1549 bound for Charlotte, N.C., highly trained pilots made skilled but gut decisions to land an airplane on the Hudson River.
This movie came to mind as I read an excerpt from CS Lewis's "Mere Christianity". Lewis didn't come to belief in Jesus easily. He was brilliant, relentless and intentional in his research about Jesus of Nazareth. In the end, he succumbed to this conclusion: "Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic... or who he claimed to be." It was Lewis's "get real" moment. He chose to believe and spent the rest of his days writing, discussing and sharing the gospel.
Salvation comes at that "get real" moment of deciding whether or not to accept Jesus as the son of God who came, wore human skin, died as our Passover lamb and rose again in victory over sin and death. This scripture sums it up:
"because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." -Romans 10:9
Our power to choose or refuse... in a real and present moment of decision.
Today, I am grateful for reminders to "get real".
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