The mystery of Malaysian Flight 370 and its missing 239 passengers and crew may be about to be solved. Or the possible signs of wreckage spotted by satellite off the coast of Australia may prove to be another false lead.
As we wait for the answer, I’ve been thinking about a far greater mystery that went unsolved for much of human history.
In the first pages of Genesis we find a clue to the mystery that, once solved, would explain God’s plan to undue the damage done by one who conspired to hijack the human race. God said to the Serpent, “I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15 (NLT)
Thousands of years later these words showed up in some of the first frames of Mel Gibson’s screen portrayal of “The Passion of the Christ.” With the ominous strains of the soundtrack, the foreboding image of a snake emerges in the darkness, before being suddenly stomped on by “the seed of the woman”— as he groans in anticipation of the hours that will follow.
Looking back, we see in those ancient words something that must have once seemed as indistinct as what we are seeing today in the fuzzy satellite images of a possible piece of debris, floating miles below in one of the most remote and dangerous regions of the world. Yet when read now, the ancient hint can be heard and seen as a clear and compelling evidence of how the great mystery of a lost human race would be found and rescued.