I remember leading a beach mission with children on the sands of Scarborough, North Yorkshire. We had had a tug of war, some choruses, and then were enjoying a quiz when suddenly a Royal Air Force Lightning jet flew by, skimming the surface of the sea before it turned and flew inland. A minute or two later it returned and went into a steep incline over Scarborough Castle. I thought the pilot was doing a stunt. Then, to our horror, the plane flipped and dramatically dropped to the sea. It crashed less than 200 yards away from the beach. The plane disintegrated on impact. The pilot was killed instantly.

The headline in the newspaper the next day was "PILOT GIVES LIFE TO SAVE CROWDS." It described how instead of ejecting from the plane and risking its crashing onto the crowded beach, the pilot had made an instant decision to stay with the stricken plane and steer it away from the crowds. He sacrificed his life to save us, although the pilot had probably not anticipated death in such tragic circumstances.

In contrast however, the Lord Jesus deliberately left heaven and came to earth with the express intention of going to a death where he would "save the crowds."