464 Luxury Liner Rescue
“I don’t know why we had to do this,” grumbled several passengers aboard The Wind (a Norwegian Cruise Lines luxury liner). “Well I’m sure that if it hadn’t been for international law the Captain would never have done it,” agreed several other equally perturbed passengers.
The Captain had responded to an international distress call from a Chinese fishing boat. One of their crew members was critically injured at sea and The Wind was the closest vessel to it. International law requires the nearest vessel to respond to such emergency calls. It just so happened that when The Wind responded, a couple thousand people on vacation came along with it.
The fisherman’s injuries were indeed life threatening. He had a compound fracture of his leg (the bone was sticking out of the skin), his foot was pointing in the wrong direction and he had lost a dangerous amount of blood. All of this could be seen by the passengers of The Wind during the maritime rescue. Two of those passengers where my friends The Chafemaster and his wife (a nurse practitioner).
“Well that’s just great,” whined more passengers after they brought the injured crewman aboard the liner, “now we’re going to miss our port-of-call in Kauai. What a vacation this is!”
Never at a loss for words The Chafemaster turned to his wife and complained loudly, “Doggoneit, now we’re going have to spend an extra hellish day onboard this luxury liner. And for what? Just to save a man’s life. Ohhh, please don’t tell me I going to have to eat another five-course meal because of this!”
One time a lawyer tested Jesus by asking, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit the life of God?”
“What do you think?” Jesus answered.
“Love God with all my heart, soul, strength and mind; and love my neighbor as myself.”
“Good,” said Jesus, “Do that and you’ll live.”
Looking for a loophole, the lawyer asked, “And just how do you define ‘neighbor’?”
Jesus then told the lawyer the story of a man who was attacked by robbers, beat up and left for dead. Luckily, a priest came by just then; however, when he saw the man he angled away to avoid him. Then a pastor showed, but he too avoided the injured man. Finally, a felon still on parole happened by. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He performed first aid and then took him to the hospital where he requested they send him the injured man’s medical bill for treatment.
“What do you think,” Jesus asked the professor, “which of these acted most like a neighbor?”
“I suppose the one who treated the injured man kindly.”
Jesus said, “Go and do the same.” (This is a Clothman paraphrase of Luke 10:25-37.)
The irony is priceless. Who better to respond to an emergency than people on a luxury vacation or a priest and pastor who are supposed to be closest to God? Yet selfishness robbed them of life. So it’s the sea Captain and the felon who inherit the life of God, for as Jesus said another time, “…whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25).
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