9-year-old boy gets on plane and past TSA

In a post-9/11 world, how does a 9-year-old boy slip through TSA, a gate
agent, and the flight attendants to board a flight from Minneapolis all the
way to Las Vegas before being discovered? That's what everyone wants to
know, but that is what the "street smart" minor did. Only well into the
flight did flight attendants have sufficient suspicion to take action,
having him delivered into protective custody once in McCarran Airport in
Nevada. Back in Minnesota, surveillance video showed the boy talking to a
gate agent and when she got busy doing something else, he walked down the
jet bridge and boarded the plane (some info via www.aviationpros.com).
While that might shake our confidence in airport security, we have to be
pretty impressed with the savvy and moxie of the little boy to get as far as
he did. He outsmarted a pretty sophisticated series of security measures
into which the U.S. Government has poured billions of dollars since 2001.

Can you imagine what the reaction was in Jerusalem almost 2000 years ago,
when Jesus stayed behind instead of returning with His family's caravan back
to Nazareth. It took everyone a full day's journey before detecting that
Jesus was not in the group. After three days they found Him in the temple.
Here was Jesus, "sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to
them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were amazed at His
understanding and His answers" (Luke 2:46b-47). Of course, the sinless
Christ had committed no crime or sin. His answer to His questioning parents
was both respectful and logical (Luke 2:49). "He continued in subjection to
them" (Luke 2:51). How many 12-year-olds would have thought to do what
Jesus did, much less in the masterful way in which He did it. Looking back,
we know this was but one of an endless list of things Jesus did which points
to His Deity. In fact, thanks to it being preserved in Scripture, we still
talk about this 2,000 years later.

It is remarkable to see what young people can do. It shows how we can
underestimate them and sell them short, though we should not. What the boy
on a plane did was incredible, but illegal. What Jesus did in New Testament
times was unsurpassed, but not unlawful. May we hold up the latter as a
role model to spur our youth on to dream bigger dreams and do greater things
to the glory of God, "wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil"
(Rom. 16:19; cf. 1 Cor. 14:20).

--Neal Pollard