John Kennedy Jr., President Kennedy’s son, was killed in a plane crash near Martha’s Vineyard in July of 1999. He had taken pilot lessons and was flying a small plane from New York on a very foggy day. It was a shocking disaster, as his wife and sister-in-law were on board and all three perished. The whole nation felt the loss and the tragedy of the event.

I remember over-hearing someone say, “How could he have felt that he could make that flight in such a dense fog? He wasn’t even experienced enough for such a flight.” Someone else answered, “You don’t understand. The rich don’t really believe that they will die.”

When I heard that, I was surprised, but I remembered Jesus’ words to his disciples: “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God . It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25).

Jesus was responding to a rich young man who had asked him what he must do to inherit eternal life. “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” ‘One thing you lack, he said, go, sell everything you have and give it o the poor, then come and follow me.’” He went away sad, because he had great wealth. (Mark 10:22)

In spite of all the evidence that wealth impedes our progress toward God and eternal life, Jesus offers another picture of a rich man of whom Jesus said, “Salvation has come to this house .” It’s the incident of Jesus’ encounter with the wealthy tax collector Zacchaeus, and Zacchaeus’ joyful acknowledgment: “If I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” (Luke 19:1-10)

Clearly it is not the wealth itself that Jesus condemns, but the attachments we have to our wealth. Zacchaeus didn’t have to be told to divest himself of his wealth, or reminded that he, too would some day die. Instead, he needed the presence of the God Man, the Christ, in his home accepting him and receiving hospitality from his hands. Jesus responded to him and to the other guests, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 10:10)

It’s impossible to gauge the spiritual condition of John Kennedy Jr., but it is possible to see in Jesus’ words and actions that he is interested not in our material worth, but in our spiritual willingness to receive him. Paul reminds us “Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”(Romans 8:39)

Love in Him,

Prue