November 2018 Newsletter Message

The 11th of this month will mark 100 years since the armistice that effectively ended fighting one of the most significant multi-national conflicts in modern history--the conflict known originally as the Great War (only to be renamed World War I once humanity was self-destructive enough to engage in an even larger conflict that would result in the deaths of about five times as many people). At the eleventh hour (11:00am Paris time) on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, shots ceased to be fired in the battlefields on the Western Front of World War I. While that ended the active fighting, it did not officially end the war--most of the belligerent nations signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the United States conducted separate treaties with several nations in 1921, and the (then) new country of Turkey did not have its final treaty in place until 1923.

I am no professional historian, but I have a lot of interest in World War I. It is a painful case study exposing the astounding limitlessness to human brokenness, with the belligerent nations each seeing themselves as fighting for honor, allegiance, sovereignty, tradition, and other high human ideals. Groups and individual people were so dedicated to those ideals that they failed to see human beings on the opposing side, seeing instead only targets for destruction. They devoted the best of human ingenuity to developing ever more destructive weapons--some of which, such as chlorine gas shells, were even acknowledged as being excessive. They destroyed irreplaceable cultural artifacts. They created new nation states...but did so by drawing lines of their own convenience rather than listening to what the local people wanted or, worse yet, sometimes even killed thousands of people solely because of their ethnic identity. They discovered technologies, medicines, and formulas--many of which we are thankful for today--but were solving problems that should never have arisen in the first place. And, for icing on the human brokenness cake, victorious French leader Marshal Ferdinand Foch failed to institute a truce or ceasefire while the terms of the inevitable armistice were being finalized, which led to 10,944 casualties (2,738 deaths) on the final day of the 52-month war.

I will readily admit that what I have just detailed in writing here is pretty dismal. Even simply putting it on paper made me feel worse about our human condition, and it caused me to take a break from writing this article to question my interest in such a subject. However, in reflecting on that question for a few minutes, an answer came to me. I realized that such painful reminders of human brokenness, while they foster powerful recognition of our sin, also drive us to praise the God who steadfastly refuses to give up on us even though that sin exists. The worst of us (be that “us” humanity as a whole, our families, or our individual lives) causes us to seek the only unfailing source of good that exists--God.

Despite the sinfulness of World War I, God has yet chosen to redeem humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and to work through our hands so that God’s kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven. Despite the sinfulness of a hate-driven man who murdered eleven worshipers in a Pittsburgh synagogue late last month, God has yet chosen to love humankind and remind us that we are children of the Heavenly Father. Despite the sinfulness of injustice, fear, and oppression that make life so difficult for people everywhere, God has yet chosen to suffer along with the brokenhearted and use broken people to bring hope through words and actions.

God’s peace to you amid whatever brokenness is providing challenges for you and/or your loved ones at the moment. In those difficulties, remember the truth of the words of blessing you hear each week at the end of the worship service: The Lord blesses you and keeps you. The Lord makes his face to shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord looks upon you with favor, and gives you peace. Amen.