In the late 1800s, no one really knew what it was like at the North Pole. No one had ever been there. Various expeditions had tried and failed. The most prominent scientists of the day believed that the ice pack that was found each time a ship headed north was just a ring of ice and that if a ship could just get through that ring, beyond it there would be open sea all the way to the North Pole and that it might even be warm up there. On 8 July 1879, after month’s of planning, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco, its destination being the North Pole. It sailed through the Bering Strait and by 7 September the Jeannette was stuck in the ice of the Arctic Ocean. Getting stuck was part of the plan. The ship was specially constructed so that it could withstand the pressure of the ice. And though they didn’t know what was beyond the ice pack, scientists knew the ice migrated and they figured a ship stuck in the ice would eventually migrate through to what they thought was the open polar sea. The crew of the Jeannette fell victim to this erroneous, though widely held, scientific theory. On 11th June 1881, twenty-one months after getting stuck in the ice, the ice around the ship melted enough so that she once again floated on open water. For the first time in almost two years, the crew experienced again what it was like to be aboard a ship at sea. However, the very next day, on 12 June 1881, the ice pack began to shift and move and then it converged on the ship and, despite the special construction of the ship, this time the ice crushed the USS Jeanette and it sank, stranding 33 men and 40 sled dogs on the ice. They were 700 miles from the North Pole but they knew if they wanted to survive, they had to head south. The nearest land was the arctic coast of Central Siberia, almost 1000 miles away. The crew, of course, had heard of Siberia and knew it to be a frozen wasteland. It was a place of exile, a place where people were sent to die. In order to survive, they had to get to a place where most people didn’t survive. In his book about the voyage of the Jeannette, Hampton Sides said this about Siberia, “Their only hope was a place with a reputation for hopelessness.” Their only hope was a place with a reputation for hopelessness. When I read that sentence I thought about the cross. The cross was certainly a place with a reputation for hopelessness. Crucifixion as a way of execution was highly reliable. No one attached to a cross came out of it alive. This was also true of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and when he died on the cross his disciples mourned and went into hiding, thinking it was all over. It really isn’t surprising that they should have behaved like this. Their teacher, their leader, the one Peter had described as “the Christ, the son of the living God,” was dead and buried. But, of course, three days later Jesus rose from the dead and eventually appeared in the flesh to his disciples and many other followers. With the help of the Holy Spirit, the apostles came to understand not just the meaning of the cross, but the absolute necessity of it. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Each of us deserves to suffer the wrath of God. We can only be “justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Our only hope is the cross, a place with a reputation for hopelessness.
