It’s been over two weeks and no one is talking about anything else.  What happened to Malaysian Airlines flight 370 with its sacred cargo of 239 souls?  The world wonders and searches.

  Tantalizing reports of in-air sightings drift in from varied locations.  Satellite imagery spots something floating in the water.  It might be wreckage.  But it might not.  And even a Boeing 777 can’t be in two places at once. 

So we wonder.  And the nations look.   But a circle with a1500 mile radius is a pretty big territory to search.

There are two basic explanations.  One is a catastrophic event on the airliner itself that sent it down somewhere into the Indian Ocean.  The second is a terrorist plot, involving the pilots or some third party.  And the plane, according to one expert, is somewhere in Pakistan.

And then, of course, there’s a third option.   Something unfathomable—like an event torn from the annals of The Twilight Zone or an episode of Star Trek.  But perhaps we had better stick to things we know, that we can explain.

It took two years to find the French airliner that went down off the coast of Brazil.  And they knew where to look.  Don’t hold your breath.

But while we’re waiting, let me tell you of three other incidents where people vanished.  These are each historically verified.   Bear with me while I recount the stories.

The first concerns Moses, the renowned leader of the people of Israel, sometime around 1400 BC.  He had led Israel to the edge of the Promised Land, and now at age 120 it was time for him to transfer leadership to Joshua who would engineer the invasion.  The Bible says, “Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisga, which is opposite Jericho.” (Deuteronomy 34:1)

After looking over the territory that would become the land of Israel, Moses died.  And the Bible says God buried him “in the valley of Moab, opposite Beth Peor.” (v 6) Then the account says, “No man knows his burial place to this day.”  A man as great as Moses, and he disappears, and the nation can’t even give him a funeral.  Because no one can find out what happened to him.

Number two involves the prophet Elijah, the most powerful prophet recorded in the Old Testament.   His miracles included raising the dead.  Impressive.  In the company of his assistant prophet, Elisha, Elijah crossed the Jordan River somewhere near Jericho, and he was swept into the skies by what is described as a fiery chariot drawn by horses of fire.  From this comes the old spiritual, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”  Elisha saw it happen right before his eyes.  Fifty students from the prophets’ school mounted a search for Elisha’s body that lasted three days.  But they found no trace of him.

Now consider the third incident.  It involves Jesus of Nazareth.  He had been executed by the Romans and buried in a tomb just outside the city wall of Jerusalem.  An armed guard stood alert around his tomb.   But thirty-six hours later by our way of counting time, suddenly he was gone.  The tomb was empty.  There is no natural explanation as to how that could happen.  But the soldiers’ testimony was not disputable. (Matthew 28)

The amazing thing was that scores of people reported over the next few days that he was alive again.  More than five hundred people together saw him and talked with him.  Conclusive proof of something supernatural that altered the laws of nature. (I Corinthians 15:1-11)  Then forty days later, eleven of his associates watched as he vanished into the air above them. (Acts 1:1-11)

Some say these are myths.  Tall tales distorted from antiquity.  But they will not yield to so superficial an explanation as that.  Do yourself a favor and check it out.  These are provable events.  They are in a class wholly different from an airliner that disappears.

Oh yes, word is that Jesus who vanished and went somewhere, is going to come back.  Perhaps soon.  We don’t know about the airliner.

Dr. Rick Perrin is Chairman of the Board of World Reformed Fellowship and senior pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Cherry Hill NJ.  He writes a weekly blog called ReTHINK which may be accessed at www.rethinkingnews.wordpress.com. He may be contacted directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..