Not Enough Fuel

There was much excitement —for the first time, the Chapecoense soccer team, from a small city in southern Brazil, would play the two-match Copa Sudamericana final.

The opponent was Atletico Nacional of Medellin, Colombia, where the first match would occur. On their trip to Colombia, the Chapecoense first took a commercial flight to Bolivia, and from there, an Avro RJ85 charter operated by LaMia, a Bolivian-based airline. On Monday, November 28, 2016, around ten o’clock at night local time, the plane ran out of fuel and crashed just a few miles from Medellin’s international airport. Of the seventy-seven people aboard (including nine crew and sixty-eight passengers), only six survived. Official sources confirmed that the pilot was warned before taking off from the airport in Bolivia that he might not have enough fuel.

Even so, he thought he could make it.

The tragic result was seventy-one people died, including the pilot.

Newspapers around the globe covered the heartbreaking story, and soccer games around the world began with a minute of silence.

The Atletico Nacional team asked the South American Football Confederation to grant the 2016 Copa Sudamericana Championship to the Chapecoense, and the team was given the award posthumously.

But no award or honor could bring back those who died in the plane crash. This disastrous incident reminds us of the foolish bridesmaids who, not having enough oil with them, were barred from the wedding banquet (Matthew 25:1–13).

We are told that “the class represented by the foolish virgins are not hypocrites. They have a regard for the truth, they have advocated the truth, they are attracted to those who believe the truth; but they have not yielded themselves to the Holy Spirit’s working.”59 While the LaMia flight accident generated much earthly sorrow, the spiritual ramifications of being unprepared are irreversible eternal consequences. Please do not risk your spiritual life as the pilot did on this disastrous flight.

The price is too high.