The man who was not allowed to board Flight 302: “Say thank you to God”

“When I arrived, boarding was closed and I watched the last passengers in (the) tunnel go in. I screamed to put me in but they didn’t allow it.”

This is how a Greek passenger named Antonis Mavropoulos described his attempt to board Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 last Sunday morning.

He was not allowed to board the next flight to Nairobi after the airline lost contact with the flight he was supposed to take. He says that a security staff member “told me gently not to protest and say thank you to God, because I am the only passenger who did not enter the flight.”

Antonis Mavropoulos has abundant reason to “say thank you to God” today. What about those who lost someone on the airplane he tried to board?

The 157 victims of Flight 302 were a small percentage of the 153,424 people who die every day around the world. But the sudden shock of their deaths made their loss especially tragic.

Is the Christian faith truly relevant at a time like this?

Is God a clockmaker?

One of the finest pastors in America, a dear friend of mine, lost his oldest son recently. As the father of two and grandfather of four, I cannot begin to imagine his pain. Or that of the families grieving over the Ethiopian airline tragedy.

At times like this, grief can turn us from God in bitterness and disappointment. If he’s our loving Father, why does he allow his children to suffer so terribly?

Or grief can turn us toward God in faith and hope. Since he’s our loving Father, won’t he help us through these days of despair and pain?

Nothing about the Ethiopian jet crash changed the character of God. If he loved us before, he loves us still. If he was King of the universe on Saturday, he is King on Tuesday.

What we fear is that the tragedy reveals something about God we don’t want to believe. Perhaps he is not as loving or as powerful as we thought he was. Perhaps he is not as relevant to our lives and suffering as we believed…