Larry and I enjoyed a week at the Outer Banks in North Carolina earlier this month. We revisited the Aviation Memorial situated behind the Visitor's Center near the entrance to the Outer Banks. This impressive memorial that celebrates the first 100 years of flight is tucked back in the trees and is a hidden gem I recommend.
There is much of interest there, but I want to key in on a poem written by a young John Magee and give you my spiritual take on it.
When
I read the poem High Flight, written by a young man named John Gillespie
Magee, Jr., I saw more than even what he intended within the descriptions of
flying through the open space of sky.
John, who was a 19-year-old American serving in the Canadian Air Force as a Fighter
Pilot and a wartime poet, was inspired to write this joyous poem by a flight he
took in a Spitfire on August 18, 1941.
Sadly, John was killed in a plane crash just four months later on
December 11 in England. His poem went on to become
what is considered the most famous aviation poem ever written.
Here is a picture of the engraved poem at the entrance to the memorial:
After reading the poem, my mind immediately envisioned our perfected and glorified bodies flying freely through space once we are in Heaven. Why would I imagine such a thing?
It's because I believe we will be able to fly, just as John described in his poem, but without the need for an airplane. Here's an excerpt from my book, "The Rapture -- Imagining the Day that Changes the World Forever." I just added a new chapter to the book this week, it's entitled "Glimpsing the Wonders of Heaven."
Here's what I wrote in the book:
~My Take On This Brilliant Poem -
When I read this poem, I see the
risen, perfected bodies of Christians flying through the sky, unfettered and
free. I see the “craft” the poet speaks
of as being our resurrected bodies, unencumbered by earth and sin, perfected
into the likeness of the resurrected Christ – who could walk through walls and
transport from one location to another in the blink of an eye – as well as rise
up through the sky to Heaven as His disciples watched.
Jesus Christ walked on the earth for
40-days after He was resurrected following His death on the cross. During that time, He ate food, talked and
taught His followers, appeared and disappeared.
He even walked along the road to Emmaus for miles talking with two
followers and then joined them for a meal.
As soon as they recognized that He was Jesus, “He vanished from their
sight,” Luke 24:31.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the
Christians in Philippi, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we
also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. / who will transform
our lowly body that it may
be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able
even to subdue all things to Himself,”
Philippians 3:20-21.
So, when we are raptured or
resurrected from the grave, our bodies will become perfected with abilities
like Christ’s own body. We’ll have
strength and abilities we’ve only dreamed of.
I believe that one of those wonders will be the ability to fly through
the air, much like Jesus did when He ascended to Heaven.
When you read this poem, imagine
experiencing the joy and freedom of soaring across the beautiful blue sky with
arms outspread, feeling the wind in your hair, rejoicing in the God who created
and redeemed you.
At the end of that chapter, I included this paragraph: When the trumpet sounds announcing that Jesus is catching
up His children to join Him in Heaven, we’ll experience our first flight of
freedom. In that moment, we’ll soar up
into the sky to meet the Lord in the air.
And -- put out our hands "and touch the face of God.”
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" 1 Corinthians 15:55 KJV
