An Ass or Air Force One

This past May, Lisa and I checked an item off our bucket list – visiting the Reagan National Library in Simi Valley, CA. (Okay, so yeah, we’re big Gipper fans. I mean, come on – love him or hate him, he was one of the most influential leaders of the Twentieth Century.) Anyway, one of the exhibits I was most anticipating was Air Force One – the flying White House. This particular airplane actually served seven U.S. presidents including Nixon, Carter, Ford, Bush (41), Clinton and Bush (43). We’re talking about some serious history here.

Besides, it’s a plane and I’m a guy, so.

Entering the Air Force One Pavilion is breathtaking. Here’s this gleaming sliver, blue and white Boeing 707 dominating the 40,000 square foot room. The jet is tilted up two degrees creating the effect that it is about to lift off and crash through the enormous wall of windows it faces. Walking beneath its length and breadth, you feel pint-sized, intimidated even. Power seems to vibrate from the very surface of the aircraft.

After our walk around, we climbed the stairs to enter into the airborne seat of presidential authority. Awed sockless by the external presentation, I was prepared to be wonderstruck by the interior. I imagined that it would feel like it looked in that old Harrison Ford movie – spacious, luxurious, serious and a lot of other words that end in –ious.

And I was right. About the words – not the plane. It was inauspicious, incommodious and unpropitious. I have been in roomier, more well-appointed compact level rental cars. Sure, flying on Air Force One would be better than sitting in the middle seat in economy class between Booger McFarland and Charles Barkley, but that’s a pretty low bar. I guess I just expected it to be more . . . consequential.

I remembered those feelings from that visit this week when I read a quote by the late Charles Colson. Colson served as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon and was the first member of Nixon’s administration to be imprisoned for his role in Watergate. While awaiting arrest, a friend gave him a copy of Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis. After reading it, Colson became a Christian. From a man who lived and moved in presidential power circles and who sat in the cramped seats of the flying White House, this statement carries some punch:

“The Kingdom of Heaven does not arrive on Air Force One.”

But some Americans think it did last Tuesday. Others expected it to, but were deeply disappointed. And both were wrong. When God decided to visit the world, how did he come? As a baby. To whom did he first appear? A teenaged girl. Her day-laborer fiancée. A group of grubby shepherds. When Jesus came to Jerusalem, Israel’s Washington, D.C., how did he arrive?

On an ass. An ASS!

Whether Tuesday turned out exactly as you had hoped or precisely as you had feared, the throne is still occupied by the One who has been sitting on it for the last 2,000 years. And He doesn’t travel in a gleaming silver, blue and white 707. He comes humbly into any and every human heart that welcomes him.