January 27, 2021

Jan 27, 2021    Kary Niles

Mission Impossible

I am a huge movie fan. I recently watched the Mission Impossible movies again. If you’ve never seen a Mission Impossible movie, let me try to describe it for you…a non-stop, adrenaline-filled, filmed in exotic places with stunts that would get a real person killed…it’s that type of movie.

In the fifth movie in the series, the beginning of the movie opens with a scene where a team of agents is trying to keep a package from being loaded on a plane. This is no ordinary plane. It’s one of the biggest cargo planes that I’ve seen. It looks military in nature and I’ve come to find out is nicknamed an airbus. The package does get loaded on the plane so the lead agent leaps onto the wing of the plane as it is taking off down the runway. The team is yelling through their communication devices to get the door open so this agent can get inside before the plane takes off. The tech person on the team is frantically trying to get it open, while the lead agent makes his way toward the side door on the outside of the plane. The tech person finally gets the door open. But it’s the cargo bay door in the back, not the door on the side of the plane where the lead agent is hanging on. Now remember, the plane was on the runway…you begin to see the lead agent lose his footing and is now only hanging on with two hands on the side of the plane. The plane is picking up speed. You can see the ground falling away and shrinking behind the agent as the plane takes off. The tech guy finally gets the side door open and the lead agent is sucked into the cargo plane. (And everyone in the audience releases the breath they have been holding this whole time!)

Sometimes, I watch the special features that accompany the movie on the disc. I watched the feature that showed the preparation of this stunt. The actor who plays the lead agent in the Mission Impossible movies does these stunts himself. There is no stunt double. For this stunt, they had military pilots that flew this particular airbus/plane, stunt coordinators, and a whole variety of other experts to make sure this stunt was done as safely as possible. They prepared as best they could before filming and then they hoped that they could get what they needed. The feature showed the filming while on the first flight and takeoff. The film crew was inside the plane while the actor was hanging from the outside of it. When they landed again, everyone thought it worked out well and they had got what they needed. One of the crew said he was thinking it was a one and done, meaning they would do the stunt once and use what they could from the filming they did. But the actor said let’s do it again. They ended up doing that stunt eight times. Talk about persistence.

You know, we have a mission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)

In the current state of our nation today, this seems like an impossible mission. How do we tell others about Jesus? How do we let our light shine? And will we be persistent in accomplishing our task? I pray that God will guide us to do what He wants us to do in our mission to share more about Him. We need to ask Him in what ways He wants us to share the Good News.

This is the mission…if you choose to accept it: Share the Jesus with everyone. This message will destruct in 5, 4, 3,…(just kidding…a little Mission Impossible humor…)