It’s a miracle!
John Allen Chau, the 26-year-old American missionary, who was murdered in a hail of
arrows on the remote North Sentinel Island by those anti-Christian Sentinelese, has pulled
a Lazarus and may just be alive — at least, that’s what some of his friends and family
are saying.
Mr Chau travelled to North Sentinel Island on 16 November 2018 to introduce Christianity
to the world’s most isolated Stone Age tribe, but he never returned.
It’s alleged that he was shot down in a deadly barrage of bow and arrow fire, but
his family and friends tend to disagree.
Chau’s friend and fellow missionary, 22-year-old John Middleton Ramsey, says that due to a
lack of a body, there’s a real chance that the young American is still alive.
He also notes that there’s only been one source cited in reports describing Chau’s
death — a statement made by some shifty Indian fishermen.
I suppose the obvious question is — Can we trust a fisherman?
Apparently Jesus was a fisherman — or at least, he knew a lot about fishing.
For those bible nerds out there, Luke 5:4-6 states, “When Jesus had finished speaking,
he said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch’.
Simon answered, ‘Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.
But because you say so, I will let down the nets’.
When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began
to break”.
So you see, Jesus knew a lot about fishing, or at least, it’s reported that he knew
the location of some fish in an almost 2000-year-old account.
Apparently, he was a living breathing fish-finder!
We have the Indian media telling us that some fishermen illegally ferried a young man to
his death.
We also have the fisherman telling us that Mr Chau died in a hail of arrow fire — a
scene straight out of the Stone Age version of The Matrix.
So a couple of questions come to mind here.
Chau believed in Jesus, right?
Jesus was a fisherman.
The illegal Indian fishermen were fishermen.
It’s alleged that Jesus guided Chau to the island in order to convert the heathen.
So ignoring all sense of logic for a second, would it not follow that the fishermen were
just carrying out God’s divine plan?
This requires us to answer a couple of more questions.
Do we believe in the writings of a 2000-year-old book?
Do we believe the verbal account of some dodgy fishermen from a dodgy part of the world?
And most importantly, do we believe the Indian media?
To top it all off, we now have the friend of the murdered missionary, John Middleton
Ramsey, commenting on all of this and stating that his friend is probably alive.
If you’re still listening to me twaddle, then you’re actually listening to a fifth
or sixth-hand account of what actually happened.
It’s all hearsay!
We don’t know what the hell happened to John Allen Chau, because nobody has found
his body.
We’re relying on the word of some fishermen who were willing to take ₹25000 to illegally
ferry a missionary to an island that is known for it’s death-inducing tribal archers.
I mean, we can hardly hold them up as the moral exemplars of our time.
Then we have the Indian media talking to the Western media, reporting on all of this.
Who do we believe?
We also have Mr Chau’s mother, Linda, telling us that in her prayers, she had feelings that
John is still alive.
God wouldn’t lie to her, would he?
Chau’s friend, Mr Ramsey, went on to say that he supported what John was doing.
“When he spoke with me about his plans before going I encouraged him and I still support
what he did.
You know, it was motivated out of love for these people so I’m behind this.
My prayer would be that he’ll be remembered as a martyr — that’s not a mother — that’s
a martyr!”.
Personally, if I told my friend to go to a dangerous island and he ended up dying because
of it, I’d feel rather guilty.
But who am I to judge?
I’m just a guy sitting behind a computer thousands of kilometres away in the relative
safety of Australia.
Only time will tell if John Allen Chau is still alive.
If it is a lie.
If the Indian fisherman didn’t actually see Chau murdered — then what happened?
Maybe Chau is busy on the island setting up the new chapel?
Maybe he pretended to be dead, and actually found a way to survive off raw fish and coconut
juice.
Maybe he paid the fishermen to tell the world that he had died, so that a few weeks later
he could resurface and become the next Lazarus — “I was killed at the hands of these
heathen, but Jesus has brought me back!
Praise ye the Lord!
Hallelujah!”.
That would sell a lot of media interviews, I’m sure.
Or perhaps the fishermen had ulterior motives.
Maybe they are hiding something that implicates them even further?
Anyway, whatever happened, we did learn something from this tragic event.
Firstly, we know that the media and the public love a good tale about an audacious young
missionary, and a tribal island murder.
It ticks all the boxes of a great story.
I would suggest that a movie could be made and it would be a real hit.
Secondly, people do a lot of crazy stuff in the name of religion.
Although we don’t know the exact fate of Mr Chau, we do know that he had delusions
of grandeur and was planning to secure his place in the history books as one of the great
missionaries.
In the end, he got his wish, for better or for worse.