Dr. Rodney Plunket

Tuesday is America’s Veteran’s Day, the day we honor those who have served our nation in the military.  We currently are painfully aware of the hazards of such service due to the all too frequent reports of American military personnel being injured or killed in Iraq.  The sharpened awareness of the sacrifices and risks of military service should cause us all to be more thankful for what our servicemen and women do for our nation.  Would all of those who have served or are currently serving in any branch of our nation’s military please stand.  Let’s show our appreciation.

The song, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” that we sang just moments ago has an interesting history.  That song was written by Julia Ward Howe; she was born in 1819 and died in 1910.  She and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, lived in Boston where they strongly argued for the abolition of slavery before the Civil War began.  Listen to an article from the September 18, 2001, issue of The Atlantic Monthly which tells how Julia Ward Howe came to write “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Julia Ward Howe . . . had visited a Union Army camp in Virginia where she heard soldiers singing a tribute to the abolitionist John Brown (who had been hanged in 1859 for leading an attempted slave insurrection at Harper’s Ferry). A clergyman at the camp, aware that Howe occasionally wrote poetry, suggested that she craft new verses more appropriate to the Civil War effort, to be set to the same rousing tune.

As Howe later explained it, the verses came to her in a single night:

I went to bed and slept as usual, but awoke the next morning in the gray of the early dawn, and to my astonishment found that the wished-for lines were arranging themselves in my brain.  I lay quite still until the last verse had completed itself in my thoughts, then hastily arose, saying to myself, I shall lose this if I don’t write it down immediately.  I searched for an old sheet of paper and an old stub of a pen which I had had the night before, and began to scrawl the lines almost without looking, as I learned to do by often scratching down verses in the darkened room when my little children were sleeping.  Having completed this, I lay down again and fell asleep, but not before feeling that something of importance had happened to me.

Soon afterwards, she submitted the poem to The Atlantic Monthly, which accepted it and paid her a fee of four dollars. After the verses appeared on the first page of the February, 1862, issue, they quickly caught on as the rallying anthem of the Union troops, and were sung frequently throughout the rest of the Civil War.  Howe’s words later inspired American soldiers during World War II, and civil-rights activists during the sixties (http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/battlehymn.htm).

I want particularly to draw attention to the fact, noted in this article, that “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” has rallied and inspired Americans, Americans committed to causes that required sacrifice and courage.

The line that may do that the most powerfully is the one that is altered in the version of the song that we sang this morning.  In the third line of the third verse we sang, “As He died to make men holy, let us teach to make men free.”  But what Julia Ward Howe actually wrote was, “As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”  Howe was in support of the cause of the Union Army because she was so opposed to slavery.  Surely for her this song was a call to Union soldiers to be willing to die for the sake of black slaves in the South.  She is exhorting soldiers to “die to make men free.”  And it is easy to see how those words stirred and inspired soldiers in World War II and civil rights activists in the 1960’s.  They were committed to the cause of freedom, and they knew that they might die because of that commitment.  This song called them to be courageous and to be willing to die for others because they were following in the steps of Jesus who died for us.

How courageous am I?  That’s a good question for each one of us to ask at a time when we are focused on the courage of others, our veterans.  But we need to examine ourselves regarding a courage that covers more than wars and demonstrations.  Each one of us needs to ask, How willing am I to sacrifice in my daily life for what is right, honorable, and good?  How willing am I to disadvantage myself for the advantage of others?  How willing am I to experience pain so that others will not?  How willing am I to give to others even when giving means that I have to do without.  Jesus had a love that caused Him to lay down His life so that others might live.  And Jesus not only laid down His life on the cross; Jesus laid down His life every day as He did all that He did for the sake of others.  He was born for others; He lived for others; He died for others.  This morning I want to call us all to a courage like the courage of Jesus, a courage that gives us the power to lay down our lives for others.

I think that often we lose courage because we are like the servant in our Scripture reading (2 Kings [2Ki] 6:15-17).  Let’s note the context of that reading.  Please turn in your Bible to 2Ki 6:8-14 and follow along as I read:

Once when the king of Aram was at war with Israel, he took counsel with his officers. He said, “At such and such a place shall be my camp.”  But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, “Take care not to pass this place, because the Arameans are going down there.”  The king of Israel sent word to the place of which the man of God spoke.  More than once or twice he warned such a place so that it was on the alert.

The mind of the king of Aram was greatly perturbed because of this; he called his officers and said to them, “Now tell me who among us sides with the king of Israel?”  Then one of his officers said, “No one, my lord king.  It is Elisha, the prophet in Israel, who tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber.”  He said, “Go and find where he is; I will send and seize him.”  He was told, “He is in Dothan.”  So he sent horses and chariots there and a great army; they came by night, and surrounded the city.

As our reading this morning reported, the servant of Elisha sees that army and is frightened.  He is frightened because he cannot see the more impressive army that is unseen.  Elisha prays for the man to see what he sees, and the servant’s eyes are opened so that he can see the great army of God.

Now listen to the rest of the story.  Please follow along as I read 2Ki 6:18-23:

When the Arameans came down against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, and said, “Strike this people, please, with blindness.”  So he struck them with blindness as Elisha had asked.  Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city; follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.”  And he led them to Samaria.

As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, “O Lord, open the eyes of these men so that they may see.”  The Lord opened their eyes, and they saw that they were inside Samaria.  When the king of Israel saw them he said to Elisha, “Father, shall I kill them?  Shall I kill them?”  He answered, “No!  Did you capture with your sword and your bow those whom you want to kill?  Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink; and let them go to their master.”  So he prepared for them a great feast; after they ate and drank, he sent them on their way, and they went to their master.  And the Arameans no longer came raiding into the land of Israel.

See with what ease God neutralized the potent force of the great army of Aram.  See how God even brought healing for a time to the relationship between these two nations prone to so much conflict and hatred.

Let’s feed our moral courage; let’s strengthen our faith; let’s muscle up our commitment to the living God.  I think that the words of the prophet to his fright­ened servant can help us do that.  Listen again to what he says in 2Ki 6:16, “Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them.”  When sin has us in its sights and we cannot imagine standing strong, let’s rise up against that sin with the awareness of who is on our side in every battle.

A year or so ago I received an email from a young Christian man who had not been married for very long.  He was struggling because a former girlfriend had come back into his life, he was falling in love with her, and losing interest in his wife.  He had not yet been sexually unfaithful to his wife, but he was feeling like it was virtually inevitable.  He asked me if he should go ahead and divorce his wife instead of prolonging the agony for everyone involved.  I said that he should love his wife more and his former girlfriend more.  If he really loved them with the love of God, he could not view either of them the way that he was.  I also told him that he should quit trying to fight the attraction he was feeling out of his own human will and determination.  I urged him to operate out of faith in the power of God within Him to conquer the sin he was battling.  I reminded him that God did not feel any desire to commit adultery with this woman, and if God were the power in control of his life he would not either.  I reminded him that Christ’s power is perfected in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9); and counseled him, when he felt the pull of sexual temptation, to stop and reconnect to God’s power through prayer, meditation, or whatever it took to open himself up to the power of God.  I cannot remember if I also said, but I should have, that he needed to find a group of brothers to pray with him and hold him accountable.  We can be courageous in the face of sinful pulls and attractions.  We can be because “there are more with us than there are with them.”

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