Disappeared!

Illustration by: FrameAngel

Malasian Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared without a trace with 239 people on board. No one has any good idea where it is. (I still don’t understand how they can find an overturned yacht in the Atlantic in a matter of days and can’t find a huge plane, but that’s for the experts to ponder. I have my own private theory of where it is—and has been—but it’s an armchair grandma’s theory, nothing more.)

I remember the Bermuda Triangle stories many years ago. Were they true? Did ships and planes simply disappear?

Aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared, and no one really knows what happened.

In the Bible, there were other strange disappearances:

• Melchizedek (Melchisedec)—The mysterious king of Salem, a priest of God, to whom Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils of battle, Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually (Hebrews 7:3).*
• Enoch—And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him (Genesis 5:24).
• Moses—So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated (Deuteronomy 34:5-7).
• Elijah—And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven (2 Kings 2:11).

It’s not only at the end of lives that people (or beings) disappeared. Consider these:

• Angels—On many occasions, angels appeared for delivering one message or doing one task. (Angels are God’s messengers.) Later, they disappeared. Angels appeared and disappeared to: Hagar, Balaam, Moses, Lot, Gideon, Manoah and his wife, Elijah, David, Ornan, the lions in the den (Daniel)**, Zechariah, Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, Zacharias, Philip, Cornelius, Peter, Jesus, the ladies at the empty tomb, the disciples at Jesus’ ascension, and probably some I missed. 
• Jesus—Of course, Jesus is God, and He can do anything He wants. He could appear in a room and disappear. When he was with the disciples in Emmaus, he disappeared at the table.

I am amazed and intrigued by the variety of ways that God works. If He wants people not to die, He takes them straight up to heaven. One got to go in a chariot of fire in a whirlwind! If God wants a messenger to do a job, an angel can assume any form he wishes . . . and then vanish! If God wants lions not to eat His servant, he sends an angel with to shut their mouths. Sword-wielding angels appeared to Adam and Eve and guarded the Garden of Eden. Jesus appeared to His disciples, and he went away in the same manner.

God can do anything any way He chooses. I praise Him!

*More about the mystery man, Melchizedek here. 

**The story of Daniel in the lions’ den is here.