The Beatles song, Love, love, love is all you need was a popular song. Young people of that time echoed that sentiment in their actions and in how they lived their lives. They thought this was a new concept that their parents just wouldn’t or couldn’t get. But the concept was far older than the Beatles song or the 60’s generation, it went back to the time of Christ. In our reading in John we hear, “17This is my command: Love each other.
Today is Memorial Day Sunday. On Monday, many of us will go to cemeteries to remember those who have gone before us. Many of those who died serving their country and especially this year it will be poignant as we reflect on the war that has raged in the last few months.
War. War has been around since the beginnings of time. My children’s generation has never known a war till recently. The only wars my generation can recall are the Vietnam War (and that one only vaguely), the Falklands, and the first Gulf War.
World War II is a time in history to me. Not a memory that I have but something I have seen on TV documentaries and movies, read in history books, or have heard stories told of it. I can only know of this era through these mediums whereas many of you have experienced it first hand. You lived that time, you felt the losses, endured the trials and tribulations, recognized the atrocities, and made the sacrifices. This era not only saw the tragedies but also saw some special gifts that came from the horrors.
Mitsuo Fuchida led in history one of the greatest and most highly successful sneak attacks recorded in history. Under his command was a squadron of 860 specially selected airplanes. Fuchida had been specially chosen for this mission having accumulated the highest amount of flight hours and flown the most missions in his country. On December 7, 1941, nearly 62 years ago, a day that would live in infamy and change the history of the United States dramatically. Mitsuo Fuchida’s squadron bombed Pearl Harbor, successfully disabling the US Naval fleet, not only extensive damage was done to battleships and battleships lost, the US military received a high casualty and death toll. The Japanese had done something that the US had not foreseen.
Fuchida became one of the most hated Japanese in the United States and one of the most highly acclaimed in Japan. Fuchida was glad to honor his country through his patriotism and service.
One man who was angered and hated what the Japanese had done was a young B-25 bomber pilot, Jacob DeShazer. On April 18, young DeShazer was given the opportunity to fight back. He was sent on a dangerous raid over Japan. Flying his bomber named, the Bat out of Hell, he set out. After dropping his bombs on the city of Nagoya, DeShazer lost his way in heavy fog and was forced to eject as his plane ran out of fuel. The Japanese captured the crew of the Bat out of Hell. They were taken prisoner, tortured by the Japanese, some executed and some threatened with their imminent death. For almost two years, DeShazer suffered with hunger, cold, dysentery, and watching his fellow prisoners die and was filled with overwhelming hatred of his Japanese guards.
In May of 1944, DeShazer was given a Bible. He was to have the Bible for only three weeks. He started at Genesis and read through several times, barely sleeping. On June 8, he read, Romans 10:9, “If you believe with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Jacob DeShazer prayed to receive Jesus as his Savior.
Immediately Matthew 5:44 became a critical text for him, “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” This changed how DeShazer treated his Japanese guards. His hostility toward them evaporated and every morning he greeted them warmly. He prayed for them and sought to witness to them. He noticed their attitude toward him also changed and they would often slip him food or supplies.
After the war, Jacob DeShazer, went to Seattle and studied to prepare himself to return to Japan as a missionary. DeShazer returned to Japan and established a church in the city of Nagoya, the very city which he had bombed. DeShazer wrote a pamphlet that flooded Japan, the simple pamphlet was entitled, “I Was a Prisoner of the Japanese.” Thousands wanted to see and hear the man who could forgive and love his enemies.
Mitsuo Fuchida went on to a great military career. On the eve of the battle of Midway, the battle which turned the war away from the Japanese, he came down with an appendicitis attack and was unable to fight. The day prior to the bombing of Hiroshima, Fuchida was there, but was unexpectedly called away. When the emperor announced the surrender of Japan, Fuchida complied. He was a disillusioned man after the war. He began farming, often being called into the city to testify on the request of General McArthur. One of these trips into the city, stepping off the subway, he was handed a pamphlet. The very pamphlet written by Jacob DeShazer. Fuchida despite being a firm Buddhist was intrigued by DeShazer’s words and went and bought a Japanese Bible. He also met Glenn Wagner of the Pocket Testament League, who spoke further with him about Christ. Fuchida was greatly affected by Luke 23:24, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do,” the words Christ spoke upon the cross as he was dying asking forgiveness for those who were killing him.
Fuchida asked Wagner to take him to meet Jacob DeShazer at his home. The two became dear friends and brothers in Christ. DeShazer served as a powerful missionary in Japan and Fuchida became a great evangelist in Japan and throughout the world.
These two men who were sworn enemies by circumstance became dear friends and brothers. From diverse backgrounds with extensive hatred and pride, both changed by one man, Jesus Christ. And both changed by the simple concepts of forgiveness and love.
In our reading of John today we heard this in verse
16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Fuchida and DeShazer were chosen by God to go bear the fruit, the fruit that would last. Isn’t that amazing?
Now time for the hard questions: Are you bearing fruit? Are you sharing what you know or are you letting your fruit rot on the tree? Is it sitting there, nice to look at for a bit but eventually rotting?
When I lived in Florida for a short time with my father, we had beautiful orange and grapefruit trees in our backyard. I loved to go into the sunroom, with it’s screened in walls and smell the fragrance in the morning. It was my job to pick the fruit and it was not always a favorite job or one I always did well. If I did not pick the grapefruit and oranges they would fall to the ground and in the humid tropical weather would soon begin to rot and ferment and trust me the smell of warm rotting citrus is not a pleasant odor. But the fruit that I picked from the tree and brought into the house, oh my, how sweet and wonderful it tasted as it melted in your mouth it makes me crave a grapefruit right this moment. My dad would be upset about how much fruit would be wasted off the trees.
Our Abba, our Father, our Daddy is upset about how much fruit we waste in not sharing the sweetness of His word with others. It pains him to see us waste the gifts and talents he has given us. He hates to see the fruit he planted, rot on the vine or tossed to the ground to be ignored.
Fuchida and DeShazer they could have turned away from the sweet fruit of God’s grace and been hateful vengeance filled people but they opened themselves to love one another and to share God’s love with others.
In the open salvos of World War II, a large British military force on the European continent, along with some English citizens and diplomats, retreated to the French coastal port of Dunkirk. With its back against the English Channel, the British army faced a German army that threatened to drive it into the sea. To save what he could of his army, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called for all available sea vessels, whether large or small, to evacuate the soldiers and civilians from the besieged French beaches and bring them back across the Channel to safety.
An incredible array of ships and boats raced to the rescue—fishing boats and cruise ships alike. As the flotilla made its way to the beach to pick up soldiers and then move out again, Nazi aircraft set upon them like vultures while German artillery pummeled them with shells. Ships were strafed with machine gun fire, and some were blown out of the water altogether.
Three German Messerschmits attacked the defenseless Lancastria, a converted cruise liner, whose decks and hold were packed with soldiers. One bomb dropped directly down the ship’s smokestack, tearing a huge gap in her lower hull. Nearly 200 men were trapped in the forward hold of the now severely listing ship. No one doubted that the liner was going down. Chaos, smoke, oil, fire, and blood, mixed with terrified cries of the men trapped below, created pandemonium on deck as those hopeful of surviving searched for lifeboats or simply leaped into the water.
Moving through the middle of this living nightmare, a young Navy chaplain quietly worked his way to the edge of the hold and peered in at the darkness below.
Then, knowing he could never get out, he lowered himself in.
Survivors later told how the only thing that gave them courage to survive until passing ships could rescue them was hearing the strong, brave voices of the men in the hold singing hymns as the ship finally rolled over and went to the bottom.
This true story testifies to the courage and compassion of one faithful Christian who gave his life to provide comfort, courage, and hope to the suffering. We are also called to demonstrate that kind of love in our lost and dying world. “Greater love has no man than this” (John 15:13).
Love is more than words; it’s more than a feeling; more than doing what’s easy and convenient. Love means getting down in the hold with someone to give them what they really need. It means getting dirty and being inconvenienced and it sometimes means “laying down your life for a friend” (John 15:13). Jesus did that for us.
But sometimes we forget what we are supposed to do. We know in our hearts that we are to do the right thing and we often know what the right thing is.
Sometimes we have to get down in that hold, sometimes we have to pick the fruit, sometimes we have to let go of the hatred toward our enemies and befriend those who literally and figuratively beat us up. This isn’t an easy thing to do. Love is sometimes the hardest thing in the world we can do. We can show compassion, we can show pity, we can be empathetic but to love is still sometimes the hardest thing to do. Love is sometimes the hardest thing to accept. Sometimes we feel like we don’t deserve to be loved because we dwell upon the past or look at the now and we don’t realize that we are worthy. Love is so necessary to our beings. And sharing our love, the joy we give and get by this process is so worth the pain that sometimes comes along. The Beatles thought they had come up with an original concept, a catchy tune when they sang, “love, love, love is all you need.” But that concept and that tune was written a long time a go by a man who was so radical, so revolutionary, that some thought of him as this peace loving hippie type way before that was even cool.
Ecumenicalism wasn’t in vogue back then, equality was not being talked about, and civil rights were unknown. And here Jesus is preaching to love everyone. Love one another. Love one another. That is still our command to this day. Love one another.
Would DeShazer had listened, would Fuchida had listened if those messages were not taught. Would they have been able to forgive and to love if Christ had not first taught that?
Memorial Day, what a perfect day to reflect upon the love of those whom we have lost be it through service to our country or be if through illness, age, or accident., but when we say the prayers over the graves of those who have gone before us, let us remember most of all the concept, the reality of love.
And we recall the message of Christ that still rings out, “Love one another.”
