New Plan, New Year

Pilots are known for having 'new plans', "just in case", in the interest of safety.  The FAA and the airlines require it, and the philosophy of safe flying dictates it.  For example, an alternate airport for landing is required in certain forecast weather conditions (if the actual weather at the destination goes below approach minimums you might proceed to your alternate), and a specified fuel reserve at the destination is always required (if airborne delays occur or if fuel burn is higher than planned).  In case of engine failure enroute, a diversion airport is a subject frequently on the mind of pilots, especially single engine airplane pilots.  When we fly an instrument approach there is always a missed approach procedure associated with it which we plan on flying, if we don't have the runway in sight at the end of that approach.  Backup plans, and backup plans to the backup plans, are important to aviation safety.  And 'new plans' aren't just part of what's required, it's one ever present part of a professional (or professionally minded) pilot's thought processes.  Airline pilots even have 'new plans' for engine failure on takeoff roll and right at takeoff. 

In the midst of the Christmas season, full of promise and surprise, we got a surprise of our own, which required a new plan.  On a visual approach into Washington National airport, we were given some indications this was about to happen, and we were prepared, somewhat.  But in what transpired after that, we (at least I did) experienced for a moment a feeling of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time.  The phrase "airline flying is hours and hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror" comes to mind.  Actually I don't think they were referring to short haul, east coast USA flying, but the quote still fits somewhat.  

It was a week before Christmas, and we were finishing our four day trip.  After landing in DC we were scheduled to fly to Norfolk, Virginia, and back, then go home.  On the way in from Detroit, the first flight of our day, I was flying a "Mount Vernon visual approach" up the Potomac river to runway 01. Washington National airport had a clear runway (no snow or ice on it) but braking action reports (good-fair for most of the runway but poor at the end).  This was odd, but there had been snow and ice recently on the airport.  Lately the asphalt runway there seemed to have a sheen on it, I guess leftover from deice applications to the runway.  More so, Washington Regan National is built on landfill right next tot the Potomac river, so it can be surmised that moisture from the ground near the river easily is drawn out to the runway surface.

A picture of Washington Reagan National airport from southwest of the airport looking to the northeast.  The green areas north of the Potomac river and bridges are the National mall, where the national monuments and prohibited airspace area P-56 are.

We turned final up the river to the north, and I commanded flaps and gear down, and
slowed our plane down to approach speed, about 140 knots.  Approach control had had us at 160 knots until five miles out, where my good First Officer contacted the control tower.  DCA tower said to slow immediately to final approach speed (which we were already at), and had an Embraer E-170 jet "line up and wait" (the new phraseology for "taxi into position and hold").  

We were waiting for clearance to land now on runway 01, the long runway at DC aligned towards the north, beyond which is the Jefferson, Lincoln, and Washington Memorials, the National Mall, the White House, and the airspace designated as P-56 which encompassed them all.  It is simply the most important prohibited airspace in the nation, and we are to avoid penetrating it at all costs.  For a map of it, click on the "Mount Vernon visual approach" link above.  Our jet was about two and a half miles and one minute away from the runway, and my good FO and I had the same thoughts: we might be going around soon. 

Shortly after the jet in front of the E-170 took off and made the left turn up the Potomac river to the northwest to avoid the previously mentioned P-56 airspace, the control tower cleared the E-170 for takeoff.  We waited, the control tower waited, and then we waited some more.  The jet was stalling on the runway, not moving, I said out loud they probably had gotten deiced and were doing an engine clearing procedure before they released their brakes and started accelerating down the runway for takeoff.  We have a procedure for this as well, for our jet it takes twenty seconds at 'N1 60% engine RPM' before we can release brakes.  It is to clear out any residual deice fluid that might have made its way into the engines during the deicing process. 

Finally the black (really a dark navy blue colored fuselage) jet started moving.  It was going to be close.  We couldn't go any slower and the tower had not asked us to do s-turns to increase the spacing between this departing jet and ours, landing behind them on the same runway.  The autopilot was off, had been off, and I was concentrating on maintaining alignment with the runway, the proper glidepath on the glideslope, and our target airspeed.  What concentration I had left I was using to scan up the runway at the now fast accelerating jet in front of us.  From the beginning of this episode, I thought they would have enough clearance from us, many times when its close the jet in front of you breaks ground when you're 100-300 feet above the ground and you continue to a landing, but this time we heard the "100" callout from the radio altimeter, and I focused completely on landing the plane.

But this time I wouldn't have a chance.  Just at that moment the control tower commanded "Express 3784, go around".  The new plan was given.  My FO replied to the tower, "go-around, Express 3784.  As I pushed the GA (go-around) button on the side of the engine throttle lever handles, pulled back on the control column to raise the nose to match the pitch attitude commanded by the flight director on the attitude display (the PFD), and pushed the thrust levers forward to the appropriate position for takeoff thrust, all simultaneously and by rote training and reflex built in, I wondered one thing: which way are we going to go? 

I let this thought distract me too much, I admit.  But I'd never been in this situation before, at Washington Reagan National Airport, with the infamous P-56 right in front of us two miles ahead, and another jet taking off right below us.  It was so close that just before I started the turn (which I'll get to in a moment) I could see its nose pitching skyward from the ground below us as our glareshield (dashboard) blocked our view of him.

(Another view of the the White House and the Washington and Jefferson Memorials, with Washington National airport on the other side of the river beyond.  This view is looking south.)

If we'd had a few more hundred feet of clearance, we would've landed, but it was a good decision by the control tower.  With the braking action as it was, if that jet in front of us had aborted takeoff while we were landing, it would've made a bad situation.

As I was pitching the plane up and looking for the one below us, "Go-around, flaps 8" was said, and my good FO retracted the flaps.  Actually, she is the one that said it, while I was engrossed with the traffic conflict blossoming right in front of us and wondering what would happen next.  You see, the published missed approach procedure at DCA from runway 1 is to basically turn left to the northwest while climbing out and avoiding P-56.  Logically, we couldn't turn to the northwest because that's where the other jet was going, and we couldn't go straight ahead because we'd penetrate P-56 and cause a bunch of bad paperwork, in the least.

I repeated the callout I was supposed to have made in the first place, "go-around, flaps 8", and heard the tower say, for the second time but for the first time for my brain, "start your right turn now to heading zero-nine-zero (090 degrees), climb and maintain two thousand".  A new plan for the new plan had been given.  I smoothly but quickly rolled in a turn towards the right, while answering my FO's callout "positive rate" with "gear up, speed mode".  She had already selected the heading bug to 090 heading and selected heading mode on the flight guidance panel.  I hoped that our turn radius would keep us out of P-56.  We had had a slight tailwind on final approach, but by the time I rolled us wings level headed towards the east (090 degrees), I could see the US Capitol building off my left shoulder, at least one mile away, indicating that we were clear of P-56.

But there wasn't time to revel in our safety or wag fingers (at myself) at missed callouts, we were now above 'acceleration altitude' and needed to 'clean up and speed up', perform checklists, talk to approach control on the radio, and brief the passengers on what just happened.  It all happens pretty fast when both engines are turning and we do it only a handful of times a year, but its what we are trained to do and expected to do well; usually its an intense but routine experience.  And actually, my job was just to fly the plane, the autopilot was on again soon, and my good FO was getting everything done in short order.  She was irritated because approach control kept asking the reason for the go around (as if it was our fault perhaps?), and they could tell she was irritated with her response.  We had a normal landing the second try, with the tower leaving plenty of room for the jet in front of us to break ground.

After the engines were shut down at our parking spot, I apologized to my FO for missing that callout, and thanked her for covering me.  I had let complacency sneak up on me; as I said had never been in this situation before, but its not the best excuse.  I had talked about what would happen in the situation with other FO's on previous occasions, I believe this situation is commonly talked about by flight crews who frequent DCA and ponder the 'what ifs'.  But for some reason I didn't think we would really, really go around, and consequently I wasn't as mentally prepared for it as I should've been.  If I had been completely prepared for it, I would have briefed that we should expect to have a right turn on the go-around due to P-56 being in our way straight ahead and the other aircraft being in our way on the standard missed approach procedure up the river to the left. 

"Complacency kills" is a much used phrase in military aviation, but its application in civilian use is very much warranted.  Many jet accidents have incurred loss of life with complacency being declared as contributing factors by accident investigators.  I know that I'll be making this possible go-around briefing when traffic is trying to takeoff in front of us when I land in DC on runway 1 from now on.  If you'd like to comment on this event, please feel free to do so.

Now, this being a New Year, many folks have New Year's resolutions, its a tradition the world over.  A new year affords a new plan, and time for making promises and goals that we will do this and won't do that, that we will love and serve others better than we have in the past, and will take better care of ourselves and our loved ones. 

But we fail.  We make resolutions, promises, and goals, then try to make new habits routine, and sometimes they do stick, but often they fail, eventually.  Where does that leave us when we fail?  In regards to our standing with God, where does that leave us when we fail?

I'd like to take this moment to encourage you (as well as myself when I read this later) that if you call Jesus Christ your Savior, you have an amazing fringe benefit.  When you fail, when you slip up, when you take your eyes off of the prize, when you let others or yourself down, basically, when you sin, take heart!  Because God promises this, from Second Corinthians 5:17-19 and 5:21: 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

"In Christ" (being spiritually connected to the body of believers in Jesus Christ), you are a new creation!  Like the old year has gone and the new year has come, the old person has gone and the new person has come.  Its a time to start over, a time to go-around and try again.  Believers aren't meant to continue in their old ways, they are meant to glorify God with their thoughts, actions, and their lives.  And the Holy Spirit, in concert with a believer's will submitted to its leading, gives the desire and power to live as a new creation of God.

Paraphrasing verse 21, Jesus, who never sinned, was made sin for us (by dying on the cross), so that through faith in Him we can be called righteous by God, (not by our own good deeds or works).  (See, turning to the right was and is a good thing!).  We are justified and saved by grace, through faith (Romans 3-4) as Abraham was.  Its a marvelous mystery, but true; read Romans 3-4 if you'd like to know more. 

If you believe in Jesus and can call him your personal Savior, but aren't happy with the way you've been living, God wants to meet you where you're at!  And that is one of the best things about Jesus, He IS a God who meets people where they're at - at their greatest point of need. 

With God's grace in our lives and a justification/salvation by faith, not by works, believers can do as many go-arounds and do-overs as needed to get through this life, with the assurance that we will spend eternity with God in heaven.  Knowledge of our true nature of salvation and the value of the work Jesus accomplished on the cross and in the resurrection results in believers becoming committed to the Lord, in just a fraction of the measure in return, that Jesus is committed to us.  My prayer for you is that you experience more of the Love and fellowship of our Lord, and that you have a better and blessed 2011.  Happy New Year!  God Bless you, and thanks again for reading my blog.

Rethinking Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!  "Peace on earth, and good will to men".  I just finished a four day trip this Christmas Eve in DC and am going home tomorrow.  We were about to leave Charlotte this evening, with the door closed and pushback clearance received, when the tug driver motioned me to look at the CSA (customer service agent-gate agent) who was waving at us and making the motion 'can you take one more passenger'?  A late passenger was frantic and wiping eyes, desperately wanting to get on this last flight of the night to Washington National airport before Christmas.  Actually we had five minutes before our scheduled departure time, but the flight had been closed.

I'm a softie for late passengers on the last flight of the night, especially on Christmas eve, so I waved my hand all friendly like and she was on the plane soon, after our Flight Attendent opened the door.  It felt good to help a late passenger get to her Christmas desitination, it was a no brainer really.  We pushed back into the night and had a nice flight to DC, where my 1,500 hour, just off of IOE, new reserve pilot First Officer 'Ben' flew a smooth, on glideslope approach into DC's runway 1. 

Everything was looking great until at 100 feet AGL the scene outside showed my eyes that the jet's descent rate virtually stopped, or got reduced to half what it was the moment before, anyway.  The 100' indicated on the radio altitude tape seemed to hover there as the airspeed started dropping a little too fast.  Two seconds had gone by and it was enough for me to say (attempted gently but firmly) "lower the nose a little".  He may have noticed the problem at the same time I said it, but by the time I did, action needed to be taken, to recover or to go around.  He did relax back pressure on the yoke, the nose lowered, the airspeed recovered some and we continued our descent until he reduced thrust to idle at 50 feet AGL and flared the plane a moment later.  We touched down a little firmly, but in my judgement only because Ben didn't flare quite enough for our energy condition, which was a little less than normal at that point.  I told him taxiing in that I thought we had plenty of energy left for him to flare a little more.  He was disappointed, but I told him not to worry about it, he has just over 100 hours in the plane, and at that experience level it's harder to see and sense when the descent has been arrested too high above the runway.

I've seen this situation before, and have no qualms at all about coaching new pilots to a safe landing.  When a pilot takes on landings in a new airplane, everything changes: the view, the speed, the pitch response, and in a jet it can be surprisingly sensitive, especially when the thrust setting is not reduced for landing (in our jet down to about 50 feet AGL).  It takes a few landings rethink how to land a new plane.

Pre-Christmas this season, I've been reading Words of Hope daily devotionals, a great ministry.  One of the writers, Dr. Verlyn Verbrugge, has got me rethinking the Christmas story.  I'd like to share three days of his devotionals about the Christmas story, I hope he doesn't mind.  Verlyn is a retired Pastor who has written a book about the same subject, titled "A Not-So-Silent Night: The Unheard Story of Christmas and Why It Matters".  I haven't yet, but I plan on reading his very interesting, very human take on the traditional Christmas story.   

For background on the most extensive Christmas story (the birth of Jesus Christ), see the gospel of Luke chapters 1-2 at ESV Bible online. 

Verlyn's December 19, 2010 Words of Hope devotional: Mary's shame

More than a million babies are born in the U.S. each year to mothers who are not married. That’s nearly 40 percent of all births. Today there is little social stigma attached to these women.

But that’s not the way it was in Bible times. Ancient culture was an “honor-shame” culture, where certain situations – one of which was getting pregnant out of wedlock – caused a family deep shame. The father of the family was expected to take some drastic action to restore the family honor.

Mary knew that what the angel was announcing to her would cause her deep pain. An unmarried virgin – conceiving a child! How could she explain? Who would believe her story, that her pregnancy involved no sexual immorality?

The nativity passages from Scripture suggest that only two people believed Mary’s pregnancy was divine: Elizabeth and (eventually) Joseph. Since we read nothing in the Bible about Mary’s parents being supportive, is it possible that they insisted that Mary leave their home until she “came clean”? I think that is possible; it would undoubtedly have protected the family’s honor.

In any case, Mary’s submissive statement to Gabriel, “May it be to me as you have said,” must have terrified her. But she vowed to be God’s humble servant, regardless of the cost.

Verlyn's December 21, 2010 Words of Hope devotional: Joseph's shame

Joseph was engaged to Mary and undoubtedly looked forward to his upcoming wedding. But then a message came to him: “Your fiancee is pregnant.” And Joseph knew he was not the father of Mary’s baby.


Joseph had to take action to retain his own honor; he had to end his relationship with Mary – and quickly. He could either increase Mary’s disgrace by divorcing her publicly or do so quietly; he was planning on the latter.


But then an angel came to him in a dream. He assured Joseph that Mary’s story about her baby being God’s baby was true, and the angel instructed him to take Mary as his wife. Now Joseph would share in Mary’s shame. Regardless of what he might say to anyone, his actions would testify to them: “That baby is mine.”


Oh, the stares that Joseph must have gotten, the whispering behind his back, the snickering of friends. In one short night, Joseph’s entire life was altered. That one dream changed all his other dreams. But he was obedient to God’s will for his life. In spite of the pain that lay ahead, Joseph did what the angel had commanded; he believed Mary, knowing that God had called him to protect her.


Verlyn's December 22, 2010 Words of Hope devotional: Pledged to be married

Joseph is headed to Bethlehem with Mary, but they are not married. And Mary is pregnant! What a story! What a scandal!


In the ancient world, an unmarried man and woman were never to be alone together, not even for a moment. Joseph and Mary spend at least seven days together, traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem – engaged but not married.

And guess what? Mary did not have to go to Bethlehem for the census. Ancient censuses were either for military purposes or for taxation – never for just counting people.  Neither reason applied to Mary. And Mary is nine months pregnant! Imagine her walking (or riding on a donkey) for nearly a hundred miles, up and down dusty roads, about ready to give birth.


Why wasn’t Mary at home, perhaps with her parents? One real possibility is that Mary’s parents had rejected her and her story. Only Joseph believed Mary, and God had charged him with protecting her. God uses this situation of pain and rejection to bring Joseph and Mary together to Bethlehem, in order to fulfill God’s prophecy through Micah (Micah 5:2).  Yes, God can and does use the pain in our lives to fulfill his purposes. Christmas assures us of that.


I hope you have a greater, deeper understanding of Christmas after considering Dr. Verlyn Verbrugge's writings.  The first Christmas was not as joyful and happy as our popular culture makes it seem, even as our 'church culture' makes it seem sometimes. 

I wish you the best for this holiday season, reader.  Merry Christmas and may God Bless you!  In the words of Mac Powell, "Hallelujah, the King is here, given for all men, for today the Holy Son of God is born in Bethlehem!"

A Grinch who almost stole Christmas

I’m touched by what went down a few nights ago. The events which transpired on Christmas Eve befit the Holiday. Both the naughty and nice sides of human nature were on display, and I’m proud of the way people with my company and others responded to the situation.

Our story starts after a Philadelphia-Milwaukee round trip, where we incurred takeoff delays in Milwaukee because of not one but two airborne emergencies of Northwest Airlines and United Express planes. After uneventful outcomes of both we blasted off for the ‘City of brotherly love’, grateful that no one was had been hurt.

As a side note, a ‘monumentally impressive snow and rainmaker of a winter storm’ (TV Weatherman impersonation) was producing only a cold and constant rain at Brew City’s Mitchell field. Freezing rain or snow, which was then located to the north and west of Milwaukee, would’ve delayed us twenty minutes or more to de-ice and anti-ice our aircraft. The frontal boundary of this weather system eventually stretched like an upside down horseshoe from the east coast over the Great Lakes and down into the southern plains states. They had blizzard warnings for Iowa and Oklahoma on the same day. The best part is this big storm was moving slowly. They’ve had flood warnings in the east, from days of rain far ahead of the snowy part of the storm system. You can see from the weather map that moisture from the Atlantic Ocean is being drawn up the east coast and across the Great Lakes, helping to feed moisture to the already snow laden atmosphere.

Back to our Christmas story, to start it that is; kind of like the background of the traditional Christmas story, it takes a little to get it going. We arrived a little late in Philadelphia from Milwaukee, and were to swap into a new aircraft for a flight from Philadelphia to Albany, New York for our overnight. I had been flying with reserve Co-Pilots on this trip, and I called our Dispatcher to ask three questions: for a meal break for my Flight Attendant and I, where our plane we were to swap into was, and who my new First Officer (FO) was. He was fine with the meal break, as we had skipped lunch, and told me that our FO, a reserve pilot from one of our other bases, had been in PHL for two hours. Arriving at the gate with Chinese food in my hand, our jet was ‘cold and dark’, airline parlance for not powered up, no electricity and no heat. What it really meant was that my new FO wasn’t present, for some reason. I put on my best poker face in front of fifty anxious passengers and one mainline pilot/jumpseater, then the Flight Attendant and I walked down the jetway to the plane. After firing up the APU to prepare the plane I called Crew Scheduling to advise them that FO ______ wasn’t present. I was quickly concerned when Crew Scheduling was surprised that he wasn’t there and began trying to track him down.

My good Flight Attendant and I agreed not to board the jet until Crew Scheduling had found an FO for the flight, this one or a new one. He wasn’t happy about it, but we advised the gate agent of this, and I became worried that the flight would be cancelled. Crew Scheduling determined that ________ had commuted back to his base for the night, and they started trying to find a new FO for us.

Rachael, our Flight Attendant, brought sodas and water to our fifty Albany bound passengers waiting at the gate. A Gate manager who was helping oversee everything brought out pretzels to the passengers as well. By now we were the last Express flight out of PHL on Christmas Eve, and my optimism was fading fast.

I went out and spoke to a few passengers about the delay, trying to bite my tongue concerning what I suspected our FO had done: essentially ditched us, the company, and fifty Empire Capital bound passengers just before one of the Holiest days and biggest Holidays of the year. A passenger asked me about the new departure time on the monitor. It now showed a 9:40 PM departure time, 2:40 later than we had been scheduled. I called Crew Scheduling (CS) back to ask about it. They informed me that the pilots of a flight currently landing at Elmira-Corning, New York would reposition a jet without passengers back to PHL and the FO from that plane would fly with our crew to Albany (ALB) for the night. Good news!

CS and our Dispatch Coordinator had worked a Christmas Miracle. They had tried assigning ready reserve pilots (different than normal reserve) but they were off duty, no other reserve pilots were available in PHL, and they called to ‘junior man’ pilots but no one was answering their phones (understandably). They had done almost everything they could to find a pilot to assign this flight to, and the only trick they had left was to extend a crew who were still on duty’s schedule, fortunately it worked.

I hated the idea of canceling this flight on Christmas Eve. The visual I had of the suffering these people would experience in not making it to loved ones for Christmas Morning was difficult to me to bear. I’m very grateful that my company and others went the extra mile to find an FO and not cancel this flight. They did more than just avoid a cancellation and the expense of putting fifty customers up in a hotel for the night. They saved Christmas for them!

I’d like to give ‘gold stars’ to my Flight Attendant Rachael, the gate agents, and ramp agents for taking great care of the passengers during this delay, and staying to see our flight out, and especially to my airline’s Dispatch Coordinator and CS Personnel responsible for not canceling this flight and for finding a replacement FO. To strand passengers in PHL on Christmas Eve because of this would have been a very unfortunate thing to do. My company and the others involved spent thousands of dollars more than necessary to get this flight out, but I’m proud of their response in this situation.

I had asked the CS person if she could share any details with me about the first FO’s missed flight assignment. CS contacted him at 7 PM on the 23rd during an overnight stay, via a voice mail message, with the PHL-ALB flight assignment. He didn’t call back, and CS left him another voice mail message on this Christmas Eve during his day of flying. He didn’t return this call either and commuted back to his base after arriving back in PHL after flying three flights. CS wasn’t happy with this person’s actions, and it seemed that this situation would definitely be addressed by management, and rightly so.

I and Rachael were angry and embarrassed, frankly, to hear of these events: angry at this employee, whom neither of us knew, and embarrassed that someone at our airline would do such a thing. While I don’t know his side of the story, it seemed to us that our FO intentionally missed his flight assignment, just in order to be home on Christmas Eve. For a reserve pilot to not call back about a new flight assignment to be flown on a scheduled day of reserve duty is very unprofessional, but even more so on a holiday like Christmas Eve.

I went back to preparing for our ‘Santa’ flight. Our jet’s wingtips were collecting frost, so I requested a de-ice. A PHL Operations Manager responded, but ultimately requested a change of aircraft because the deicing trucks had been shut down for the night, and the de-icing crews had gone home for the night as well (can’t blame them really). Our Dispatcher changed our jet to the one being repositioned to PHL, bringing in our new FO, assigned to our PHL-ALB flight. This plane was “negative APU” (APU inoperative) so I requested an air start cart (for the engines) and a GPU. The circus music had already replaced the Christmas music in my head, and it was getting louder. Fortunately and thankfully our ramp agents and gate agents had not abandoned us, and continued to take care of our needs.

With only the Captain and our ‘savior’ FO on board, our new jet arrived and parked next to our frosty one. The ground crew plugged the GPU (ground power unit) in and we had electricity on the aircraft without having to run one of the engines. Rachael, our new FO and I prepared it and boarded our 50 passengers for ALB ASAP. We pushed back just after ten PM, three hours late.

This night, Christmas Eve night, we had had a Grinch who tried to steal Christmas from our passengers, a selfish fellow with an ugly attitude, thinking only about himself and not others he was to serve. True Christmas spirit, that of giving, serving, and sacrifice, and ultimately of suffering, was not in him. It reminds me of how secular traditions – the commercialization of Christmas (giving gifts, Santa, etc.) and applied humanist philosophies try to steal it from it’s true reason: The celebration of the human birth of Immanuel, ‘God with us’ (Isaiah 7:14) , The prophesied Messiah for the Jewish people and all mankind, Jesus Christ.

There were many prophecies fulfilled just by the birth of Christ. Concerning his birth, the who it was, what would happen, when it would occur, where it would occur, how it would occur, and of what lineage the Messiah would be was prophesied of hundreds and thousands of years before Jesus birth. For two websites worth exploring these prophesies at, click here and here.

Why do I write of Christmas in this way, that it includes sacrifice and suffering? The original, true Christmas story had these elements. Mary and Joseph were certainly cursed at under the breath of others, and possibly ostracized by those who didn’t believe their ‘Holy Spirit conceived pregnancy while still a virgin’ story (Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-37) that no doubt made the rounds in their town of Nazareth. There’s suffering there.

The arduous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem that they made during the final stages of her pregnancy involved suffering and sacrifices as well. It was 70 miles, and tradition says that Joseph walked and Mary was on a donkey. The census, called by Caesar Augustus, was to collect taxes for the Roman Empire, and required that everyone travel to their hometown (Luke 2:1-5). By God’s sovereign plan this requirement enabled fulfillment of the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, given by Micah the Prophet in Mica 5:2: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past.”

We humans love signs from the divine, and in the Christmas story, one of the signs ‘of the new King’ was given to ‘wise men from the east’. From Matthew 2:1-12, wise men from the east ask King Herod in Jerusalem “Where is the new born king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.” Why did this signal to the wise men that a new King was born? According to a Bible guide I have, some astronomers calculate that in 7 BC Jupiter and Saturn lined up inside the Pisces constellation not once, but three times. On the ancient Middle Eastern horoscope, Jupiter represented kings, Saturn represented the Jews, and Pisces (fish) represented the Jewish homeland, so it seemed that a Jewish King was arriving at the Jewish homeland! Click here for a Theoretical Astrophysicist’s interesting opinion on it.

What a great sign this was! And I’m grateful that I received a sign this night, a skeptic might say it was coincidence, but I have faith in Jesus, and prefer to use it when I can. Our great sign this night was the name of our new FO, whose last name was ‘King’, I kid you not. He was easy to work with, understanding of the situation, he even called me sir, kept doing it too, even after I told him he didn’t need to. A ‘King’ who suffers and serves, he had those traits in common with the Lord.

If you’re thinking ‘baby Jesus didn’t suffer’ you’re probably right (except for the animal dung smell!), but suffering was part of his destiny. By reading the gospels one can see that He never turned away when faced with suffering and sacrifice. We Christians are quick to accept his serving, suffering, and sacrifice for us, but tend to be slow in accepting it in our own lives. However, In relationship with God through faith in Jesus as personal Savior and Lord and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, we can grow to accept sacrifice and suffering with Joy. This sentiment is expressed in I Peter 4:12-16: “12Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name."

Glory, praises, and all honor to all mankind's newborn Messiah and King!