The amount of sheer mayhem caused in the run up to the Christmas period at Gatwick Airport, the UK’s second biggest airport, due to drone activity was quite astonishing. It was the biggest disruption since the Icelandic ash episode in 2010.
All told these drones, identified as flying within the Gatwick perimeter, cancelled or diverted around 1,000 flights, affected about 140,000 passengers over a three day period. And if this was not enough, even more recently, the M48 Severn Bridge crossing has also now faced closure due to the illegal operation of another drone. I think it fair to say that evidently these episodes are a wake-up call that we cannot and should not ignore.
Very interestingly one of the names for the evil one, Satan, is “the ruler of the power of the air”. Just pondering that for a moment, it does appear that a number of similarities emerge: first-off Satan does not like to call attention to himself – rather like these drone operators, he works anonymously from a safe distance. Charles Spurgeon said: “The devil himself is so self-denying that he denies his own existence…”. Second, his activity is rather subtle, you’re often left wondering whether what you observed was real or just in your mind. And perhaps the clearest thing of all, Satan’s work will always result in chaos. No great surprise there given God brought order from chaos when he said those words “Let there be light…” and thus Satan introduces darkness as his best response to undo those workings of God.
I guess if we have to take drone chaos in our day seriously, we might as well to wake up, once and for all, to that phantom menace of old, who rightly has that malign reputation as “the ruler of the power of the air”.
Pastor Hedley
