Crash Landing On You

Ephesians 4:15 “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.”

At the end of 2019, Elaine and I watched Crash Landing On You, a Korean drama about a South Korean chaebol heiress who accidentally lands in North Korea on a paragliding trip. A captain in the North Korean army discovers her, and at great peril to himself and his family, helps her get to safety and eventually back home to South Korea.

I enjoyed watching the show because I’ve been involved in North Korea work for some time, and because I had a chance to meet Son Ye-jin, the lead actress, on a trip to Singapore. (Thanks @SabrinaTan and @SkinInc!) She hasn’t admitted it to me yet, but I think my wife largely enjoyed the show because the lead actor was played by the dashing Hyun Bin 

At a lunch after church one day, Elaine told all her girlfriends about the show and insisted that they MUST watch together with their husbands. It sounded innocent enough, but after a few weeks I got a message from all of their husbands that said the same thing. It went something like…

“Dude, why did Elaine have to ruin my life? The standard of love depicted in this series is so ridiculous! Now my wife expects me to sacrifice everything for her. It’s totally unrealistic!”

I guess that’s the beautiful thing about Korean dramas. They give us an impossible standard to live up to. One can find great insecurity in that, but one can also find hope and inspiration for what lies ahead.

If there’s one account of love that surpasses even the standard of Hyun Bin, it would be the account of a God who loved you so much that he literally sacrificed everything for you. That standard of love seems so impossible, and yet scripture tells us that we will grow to become in every respect like Jesus. Hyun Bin better look out, because he’s got some steep competition ahead.

Lord, I thank you for making the impossible totally possible. Thank you for the ultimate expression of what it means to love. I’m overwhelmed with your sacrifice today. In your son’s name, Amen.