Today is a day that needs little help in explanation or purpose-description. The message of the sacrifice of Canadian troops and allied forces for the freedom of the world from dominating forces in World War I and the threat of Fascist and Nazi rule in World War II is not hard to understand. What is difficult to grasp is the price paid. We cannot appreciate the living conditions of the trenches. (S1 and BS2) Our minds can only grapple with the horrors that live in the minds of soldiers to this day. The 60,000 plus Canadian soldiers of World War I and the 45,300 Canadian soldiers of World War II are staggering statistics. It is equivalent to wiping out Owen Sound’s population five times over. The casualties of World War II alone numbered at 62,537,400, with 75% more civilians killed than soldiers. Civilians alone numbered over 46.9 million people. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties)
(S3) “Lest we forget” – the slogan that accompanies the poppy is most appropriate. (BS4)
Can anyone imagine how you would feel today if our nation decided we did not want to remember any more? That we would no longer be interested in commemorating fallen solders? It would leave many of us aghast with the suggestion if it were presented to us. Not remember? The whole of sacrifice, pain and suffering would be treated as rubbish and a grave disrespect would be served.
This time is also a time to remember presently, what I would label a type of World War III of sorts. It is the war of the world against terrorism and exploitation. An October 6 report states that 43 Canadian soldiers have fallen in Afghanistan since 2002. (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/10/06/harper-leadership.html) (S5) This reality struck close to home with the sacrifice of Corporal Robert Thomas James Mitchell of Owen Sound, out of Pedawawa, ON., who was the 39th fallen Canadian soldier. (BS6)
I never enter this time of remembrance without my mind being flooded with another “fallen soldier”. I cannot forget the heart-wrenching pain of His mother as she watched helplessly as her only Son was beaten to within a hairs-breath of being beaten to death. He waged a war of unsurpassed sacrifice. The battle was not rightfully His to fight but He did so because the exploited and weak had no power to defend them selves. When we put all the suffering and deaths of every war together, these cannot touch the weight, suffering and sacrifice of His war. His battle deserves its own recognition “lest we forget” and the world forgets. Too many have never even heard about it – or Him. Just as it is unconscionable to consider forgetting the sacrifice and death of soldier and civilian lives, it is even more so, a grave travesty and dishonor to His service and sacrifice, to forget. I am speaking of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
It will likely not be a surprise to you that Jesus Christ is widely known as
1. A Respected Man
Matthew 16:13-14, “13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 14"Well," they replied, "some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets."
The view of who Jesus is continues to be a fast-changing reality with multiple possibilities offered. Because the world is increasingly in the dark about Jesus, Post-modern culture has developed a value system that works counter to the traditional place and person of God through Christ. Pleasing people rather than God is a value. Society is tolerant of things that God explicitly says we should not be tolerant of. Truth and Scripture is subjective, always changing by the culture and climate. Pluralism is widely endorsed, meaning all religions lead to the same place. Today’s society rejects authority, favoring group consensus. To quote one source, faith is “based on feelings, imagination, mysticism and group consensus.” The list goes on. Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is being squeezed out of our frame of reference and conviction. (http://www.crossroad.to/charts/postmodernity.htm)
Just as we work diligently to preserve the respectful need for Remembrance, so must we exercise a sacred commitment to remember the person and work of Jesus Christ who is the only atoning sacrifice that can cleanse us of our misbehaviour and make us right with God again.
Jesus Christ is a respected man, but we must understand and declare that he is so much more than that. He speaks of himself as
2. An Intimate Friend
Soldiers know the risks of war. They enter it with the clear knowledge that they may not come home alive. Why the risks? If you asked them, they offer a variety of reasons for doing so. One of the underlying purposes is often connected to their families and children, fight for their freedom and safety. Sometimes soldiers think of children who do not have the joys of their own children and so they want to try and make a difference for them. People fight for love of Country. Some soldiers are convicted with the desire for basic human rights for all peoples of the world and so their contribution leads them to this place called the battlefield that they might fight injustice and wrong against humanity, that all nations may be free! At some point, the reasons become personal or so close to home that they respond to the call of duty.
The war that Jesus waged against sin and separation from God is personal friends. In John 15, Jesus is not speaking to strangers or cordial acquaintances. Those to whom he speaks are those who followed him, people who spent years doing ministry with him; being ridiculed because of him; denying themselves some fairly standard comforts by spending time with him. It is his relationship to these that he refers to in verse 5. He speaks of their relationship, as offered in The Message, as that which is “intimate and organic”. This speaks of the highest, deepest and most intimate of relationships. Jesus goes on to outline how he has revealed to them all the plans and heart of God the Father and that this revelation is the result of one thing. That one thing is verse 15…
Now, here’s the exciting news of this passage. Jesus did not leave us these words as a history lesson. He speaks these words this morning to us! He invites us to be his friends! He invites us to enter into an “intimate and organic” relationship – alive, real, close, and vibrant. How is it possible for us to have an organic relationship with God? He is no longer flesh and blood. It is possible in that the Spirit of God that lives in you extends Himself through your voice, the touch of your hand and the smile of your face. He is organic presence when you cry with the broken and pray with the weary. When you speak encouragement and kindness to a child it is God’s voice, not yours, that offers light and love.
Our veterans fought a war that most of us knew nothing about. Some of us were not even born. Yet, we enjoy the riches and blessings of a free country and a free North America, because you were willing to fight for us. Yet, you had no idea of the long-reaching impact it would have. Neither did you know the countless millions of people that would be blessed because of your sacrifice and call to arms. You did not know our names or that you would sit today with the people for whom you fought. Now, set those realities against this ‘soldier’ Jesus, who sacrificed himself for people – with names, families, interests and a life-signature that is like no one else’s in the entire world! He died for YOU as if there was only one person in the entire world to die for!
I remember being given an invitation to read John 3:16 but in doing so, to replace “the world” with a reference to me. I invite you to do the same here and now. Please read the verse on the screen with me. (S7) “This is how much God loved me: he gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that I need not be destroyed; by believing in him, I can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling me how bad I am. He came to help, to put me right again.” (John 3:16-17, The Message) (BS8)
To many, Jesus is a respected man. He desires however, to be an intimate friend and wishes us to know that he is more than a distant deity removed to some far off galaxy. The message continues though. Even beyond his desire to have an “intimate and organic” relationship with us now, He would have you know that He is your
3. Passionate Savior
Back to Matthew 16 – When Jesus asked who people say he is, to which his followers gave the popular answers. Then Jesus moves the question to a more personal stance asks his followers in Matthew 16:15-16, “15Then he asked them, "Who do you say I am?" 16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
The smallest child with a sufficient amount of understanding and reason can look at any veteran soldier wearing their metals and be able to articulate enough of their understanding to explain the reasons for it. To do this however, a child must be taught – not just knowledge for the head, but if that child is to remember the lesson, the teacher must reach into their heart to make the deepest impression.
The revelation to Peter that Christ is the Messiah of God is similar in that it was not spoken by the heart of a man who wanted to offer an impressive answer. It was spoken by a man who, with the touch of God’s finger on his heart, was impressed to speak the truth that he experienced in that moment.
This is that point when we determine whether or not the intimate desire of God is to be received. We could never get close to God and at the same time fail to understand who Jesus is in God’s plan of redemption and salvation. What you do with Jesus in this moment speaks of your relationship to God. What will you do with Jesus? Dismiss him as good man, teacher, prophet, Jew? Or worship Him for who He is – the only Incarnate Son of Most High God?
The place where the passion of Christ for us is awakened in our hearts, is when we come to understand that we were
4. Worth Dying For
One of the most loved verses of the Bible for anyone who has ever professed Jesus Christ as Lord is John 15:13…
There is a beautiful powerful song that says,
I have a Maker
He formed my heart
Before even time began
My life was in His hand
He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And hears me when I call
He hears me when I call
I have a Father
He calls me His own
He’ll never leave me
No matter where I go
There is no wonder that God considered us worthy dying for, when one realises how intimately He knows us! His love for you is so deep that he has numbered every hair on your head – and renumbers them when some fall out (Matthew 10:30)!
Around that verse, in verse 29 and then the verses following verse 30, Jesus speaks of the preciousness of a sparrow to God. A single sparrow is so precious that when even one dies God sees. To this Jesus injects, “you are more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows” (verse 31). Worth dying for? Without a doubt!
WRAP
• (S9.1)Jesus is a respected Man, as there sits with us respected men.
• He must become more than a respected Man, as we are asked to see Him as one who desires to be an Intimate Friend. (S9.2)
• Not only a Friend of friends, but (S9.3) a Passionate Savior – the Messiah of God who waits to restore our ruptured relationship with God.
• It is for this purpose that He believed we were (S9.4) worth dying for.
• Is Christ therefore, (S9.5) worth living for?
