Dr. Rodney Plunket

Saving Private Ryan is a movie about a group of American soldiers who, during World War II (WWII) are sent behind enemy lines to find Private Ryan, a soldier whose only two brothers have already died in the war.  The group sent to find and save Private Ryan experience incredible horrors in the fulfillment of their mission.  The majority of the group dies before their mission is completed.

Very near the end of the movie there is a battle on a bridge, the leader of that group of soldiers is wounded and knows he is dying.  He tries to say something to Private Ryan, but his voice is so weak that Private Ryan has to ask him to say it again.  The dying soldier focuses all of his remaining energy.  He says, “Earn this.  Earn it.”  And then he dies.

The final scene of the movie is cast in a military cemetery with row after row of white headstones.  An older man is at one of those headstones.  The viewer realizes that this man is Private Ryan many years after WWII.  And the headstone marks the grave of the man whose final words to him were “earn this, earn it.”

The older man who was Private Ryan is speaking to the headstone as if it is the man who helped save him.  He says,

To be honest with you, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel coming back here today.  Everyday I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge.  I’ve tried to live my life the best I could.  I hope that was enough.  I hope that at least in your eyes I’ve earned what all of you have done for me.

Some might argue that the exhortation to earn all of the sacrifices of those men who died to save him was too great a burden for Private Ryan.  I think there is truth to that argument.  I think it would be too great a burden.  But we need to remember that this movie, although set in the midst of a presentation of the realities of WWII, is still fictional.  The fictional mission to save Private Ryan provides the vehicle for causing the viewer to become aware of all that soldiers suffered during WWII, all that those men experienced so that the world would be rid of the tyranny of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.  The words, “earn this, earn it,” are the movie’s way of waking hearers up, waking us up to how shameful it is to be ungrateful to all of those who have served in the military so that we might be free.

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, a day on which our nation honors those who died serving us in the military.  So today we do honor those who gave their lives for our freedom.  Let’s pray.

It also seems appropriate on this day to recognize those among us who served or are serving in the military but gratefully have not died providing that service.  If you are a veteran or are currently serving in the U. S. Military, please stand so we can express our gratitude to you.

I am glad that our nation expresses gratitude to those who have died to defend our freedom.  I am glad that the movie, Saving Private Ryan, was made; because it made me keenly aware of what our fighting men in WWII suffered.  It made me so much more grateful for what they did.

But when I think of gratitude my mind goes back to an even greater sacrifice, a sacrifice made that I might be free indeed––free from the fear of death, free from meaninglessness and hopelessness, free from slavery to the oppressive power of sin.  My mind goes back to the freedom granted me by God the Father through Jesus Christ God’s Son.  My mind goes back to passages like 1 Timothy 1:12-17, the Scripture Reading for this morning.

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost.  But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life.  To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

There Paul powerfully reveals his gratitude for all that Christ Jesus had done for him.  I think Paul’s life from his conversion to Christ until his death was shaped by gratitude.  The older man that Private Ryan became said that he thought about the exhortation to “earn this” everyday, and that exhortation shaped his life.  That is fiction, but what Paul felt was real.  He really was shaped, everyday, by gratitude for what Christ Jesus had done for him.

Why?  Why was Paul so grateful?  His words in 1 Timothy 1 make it clear.  Paul was grateful that as violent an aggressor against God as he was he was still welcomed into the saving mercy of God and given eternal life by God.  Paul found a life of immeasurable blessing with God in Christ.  His writings tell of the joy that he found––a joy that persecution could not diminish, a joy that evil could not conquer.  He experienced the wonder of God’s Holy Spirit living within him, transforming him from the inside out.

Please listen to a passage from Paul in which he calls on other Christians to be shaped by what Christ Jesus has done for them.  In Philippians 1:27 he writes,

Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.

“[L]ive your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”  The word “gospel” means Good News.  Paul says that the Good News about Jesus should impact believers’ lives so profoundly that the desire to show the wonder of that Good News shapes their lives.  They live the way they live because of what Christ Jesus has done for them.

And please listen to one more passage from Paul.  Listen to 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 in which Paul says,

For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.  And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

Why did he die for all?  “[H]e died for all so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.”  That is how the death of Christ is to transform people’s lives.  It is to cause us to get out of our selfish ways.  It is lift us up out of ourselves.  In Romans 6 Paul says that believers are to experience what Christ experienced.  Christ was raised from the dead, was raised up out of the tomb by the power of God.  Paul says that we are to be raised as well.  We are to be raised to live “a new life” (Romans 6:4).

The Good News of Jesus is to transform lives.  We are to live no longer for ourselves but for Jesus.  We are to live lives shaped by gratitude, gratitude for what Christ Jesus has done for us.

Several years ago, there was a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park.  After the fire, some rangers were walking through the burned out land.  One of them saw a bird at the base of a tree, literally petrified in ashes.  It was an unnerving sight, so he knocked it over with a stick.  Out from under that dead bird came three baby birds.

It was not difficult to deduce what had happened.  That mother bird realized instinctively that the toxic fumes of the fire smoke were rising.  She knew to save her babies she had to get her babies out of those fumes.  So one-by-one she took each of her babies to the base of the tree.  Then she covered them with her body and her wings.  And she stayed there and died an excruciating death by fire, but she saved her babies.

She could have flown away to safety.  But she sacrificed her life for the lives of her young.

Jesus covered us with His wings of love.  He covered us to protect us from the flames and toxic fumes of sin that sweep across our world.  He covered us so completely that he received the full killing force of those sins.

Jesus from the cross, with his feet and hands nailed and the crown of thorns on His head, did not say, “Earn this.  Earn it.”  Aren’t you glad?  There is no way to earn that sacrifice.  There is no way to earn the death of the Son of God, the One in whom the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.  Won’t you receive the free gift of Christ’s perfect sacrifice on the cross?  Please come to Jesus.  Please come under His loving and protective wings.

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