A Tennessee construction worker who experienced a near-death experience during emergency surgery in 2004 has described the appearance of Jesus, claiming the figure had darker skin, green or blue-green eyes and shoulder-length, wavy brown hair.
Mike McKinsey was working as a superintendent when a ruptured appendix caused a severe infection and left him critically ill. He said Jesus appeared in the operating room, took his hand and transported him to a hill overlooking what he perceived as heaven.
McKinsey recalled the figure wearing a white robe and having a short beard. He said Jesus held out his hand and told him: “I want to answer your prayer.”
Describing the encounter, McKinsey said: “I would say it was just love, and the only way I’ve ever described it is when his eyes looked in mine, he looked into my soul. As soon as our eyes met, he knew me. He was the brother I never had, the perfect father. It was all love.”
Jesus ‘returned’ during hospital recovery
McKinsey said the experience continued after the surgery, when he developed pneumonia while recovering in hospital. He claimed Jesus appeared again and spent about three hours speaking to him, although he could not see the figure on that occasion.
“I feel this holy presence enter the room, and it was like the NDE started all over again,” he said. “I just could tell he pulled up a chair and he sat down at the end of my bed and I just knew he was there but I couldn’t see him.”
McKinsey said the presence told him: “I had to get you flat on your back away from all the distractions so you could hear me… I’m calling you out to do more for my kingdom… Millions are going to hear about our story.”
He said he believed Jesus remained beside his bed while nurses attended to him, describing the presence as similar to a friend sitting with and comforting someone who was ill.
McKinsey claimed he initially resisted the request to become a Christian messenger. “I’m not Billy Graham. I can’t do that,” he recalled saying.
He later said the figure appeared amused by his response. “He did chuckle when I said I’m not Billy Graham. I’ve never heard him laugh, but that was probably the closest that I’ve come to that. But yeah, he’s a friend,” McKinsey said.
After spending 12 days in hospital, McKinsey became an author sharing his account of the near-death experience and what he regarded as a calling to spread the teachings of Jesus.
He said he believed Christians had direct access to God because of Jesus’s crucifixion. “We have direct access to the throne. I think of him as a friend now,” he said.
McKinsey also interpreted later hardships through the lens of his experience. He said both of his parents died within six months of each other, but came to view such losses as part of a fallen world rather than evidence that Satan was singling him out.
“I could feel God’s presence and Jesus holding me up, the Holy Spirit holding me up,” he said, adding that he continued to focus on the support he believed he had received.
