The best article I read this Veterans Day described the fate of four chaplains, all lieutenants, who saved countless lives and went down with the USAT Dorchester off the coast of Greenland following a Nazi torpedo hit during World War II.
Rev. George L. Fox, Rabbi Alexander Goode, Father John Washington, and Rev. Clark Poling guided terrified sailors to lifeboats through complete darkness and chaos, and then gave away their own life jackets in the wee hours of February 14, 1943.
Numerous eye witnesses (230 of the 902 on board survived) described their last glimpse of the ship, illuminated by flares and flames: the four chaplains were standing arm in arm on the bow, looking up to heaven.
Some analyses of the Dorchester event might correctly lament the failure of systems and equipment. Only two of fourteen lifeboats were deployed. Life jackets ran out. The boat sank like a stone in 20 minutes.
But what struck me about the article I read (which is linked below – and I highly commend it to you) is that I came away with the distinct savor of a holy victory. No matter what else happened that night, those four chaplains had been fully armed. They had completed their missions with powerful precision. They had achieved every combatant’s most keenly felt goal: victorious home-going.
Veterans Day should prompt reflection and gratitude, should it not? Generations past who sacrificed that we might today live, in freedom; veterans of the future who are even now deployed to far places, for us… gratitude and reflection are the only appropriate responses, surely?
This Veterans Day, my grateful reflection keeps returning to Rev. George L. Fox, Rabbi Alexander Goode, Father John Washington, and Rev. Clark Poling. That foursome made the “ultimate sacrifice” in such a way that others might not only live in freedom in the here and now, but also focus on the freedom that lasts forever.
Focus.
Fox, Goode, Washington, and Poling exemplified focus.
In the midst of panic and chaos, they exhorted calm and imposed order.
While others scrambled to save themselves, they stood strong to save others.
While others looked desperately for ways to stay afloat in the arctic waters, they looked out for those others until the last moment – and then they looked beyond, focusing on God rather than their own imminent deaths by hypothermia and drowning.
Focus.
Surely focus is not more difficult for us, in our age of supremely comfortable distraction, than it was in the icy darkness of the sinking Dorchester?
The apostle Paul, arguably the most focused Christian of the first century, employed the language of a combatant in his instructions to others.
“Fight the good fight of the faith,” Paul encouraged Timothy in his first letter to him (6:12).
“Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” he wrote the church at Ephesus.
“I have fought the good fight,” he told Timothy in his second letter (4:7). “The Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom.” (4:17 – 18)
Paul’s language and violent life experience was nothing new for God’s people. In fact, Paul’s life and writings recalled King David’s, the warrior-sovereign who wrote psalms full of specific and explicit battle images.
It is you who light my lamp;
(Psalm 18:28 – 29)
the Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.
By you I can crush a troop,
and by my God I can leap over a wall.
Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me;
(Psalm 35:1 – 2)
fight against those who fight against me!
Take hold of shield and buckler,
and rise up to help me!
Draw the spear and javelin
against my pursuers;
say to my soul, “I am your salvation.”
Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
(Psalm 144:1 – 2)
who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;
my rock and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge…
David, the “man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14) first burst onto the scriptural scene as a shepherd-boy turned giant-killer.
Astonished that the armies of the living God were cowed by the ranks of the Philistines and their braggadocious champion, Goliath, David got immediately down to the business of battle:
“Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.” David said, “The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” …
The Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him… And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.” But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand… so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand.” (1 Samuel 17:34 – 37, excerpted)
Facing peril on a battlefield, Israel’s greatest king and the ancestor of the Messiah focused exclusively on displaying God’s glory.
Is there any doubt that Fox, Goode, Washington, and Poling did likewise?
The focus on veterans is a fleeting thing in our culture. We mourn on Memorial Day; we have parades on Veterans Day; we look elsewhere on most other days.
But this matter of focus (focus LIKE David’s and Paul’s, focus LIKE Fox, Goode, Washington, and Poling’s – not necessarily focus ON them) should persist.
Why?
Because the battle for forever rages around us, day in and out.
Because we are surrounded by those who need life jackets and instructions to the life boats and an encouraging word spoken through the chaos.
Because displaying God’s glory on the battlefield is as much our calling as it was theirs.
Of course, for our efforts to be effective, we must be fully armed. David had five smooth stones. Paul had his ink and papyrus. Fox, Goode, Washington, and Poling had life jackets. They ALL had the objective of God’s glory as their guide and their protection.
If we want to be like them, if we want to be able to stay focused in whatever fray the day may bring us, we must embrace their objective of God’s glory, and we must be fully armed with the means God provides each of us.
Time. Talent. Treasure. What weapons has God given us to use in defending His precious ones? What resources has God put in our hands for His deployment? What relationships, situations, opportunities, and challenges constitute our battlefield today – and what will it look like if we make God’s glory our objective?
Friends, as Veterans Day rituals come to an end this weekend, may our resolve to glorify God in “this present darkness” persist and increase.
May it be said of us, as it was said of Fox, Goode, Washington, and Poling, that when the battle is fierce and frightening, “I could hear them preaching courage. Their voices were the only thing that kept me going.” (Private William B. Bednar)
Link to article on the Dorchester by Steve Beard:
