Sunday after the Ascension
Readings: I Peter 4:7-11 and John 15:26-16:4
Jesus said, "I have told you all this to keep your faith from being shaken. Not only will they expel you from synagogues, a time will come when anyone who puts you to death will claim to be serving God! All this they will do to you because they knew neither the Father nor me. But I have told you these things that when their hour comes, you may remember my telling you of them."
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Jesus taught us to not have our faith shaken and the story that I share with you today is about faith and dedication. Before it ever touched the water, the Navy’s amphibious assault ship USS New York had already made history. It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.
When the USS New York was about 45 percent complete it rode out its first hurricane in dry dock. Katrina disrupted construction when it pounded the Gulf Coast, but the 684-foot vessel escaped serious damage, and workers were back at the yard near New Orleans two weeks after the storm.
It is the fifth in a new class of warship designed for instant reaction missions that include special operations against terrorists. It carries a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.
It would be more than fitting if the first mission this ship would be dispatched on is to make sure that bin Laden is taken out, his terrorist organization is taken out. Glenn Clement, a paint foreman who worked on the ship said. “He came in through the back door and knocked our towers down and (the New York) is coming right through the front door, and we want them to know that.”
Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, La., to cast the ships bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence, recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.
Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the hair on my neck stood up.
It had a big meaning to it for all of us, he said. They knocked us down. They can’t keep us down. Were going to be back.
The ships motto? - Never Forget
Some may take the motto Never Forget almost as holding a grudge, but I want to focus on the thought, If we forget our past of what has happened, then it is very likely that history will repeat itself. I for one never want to forget the blood that has been shed so I can enjoy the freedoms which I enjoy now. I never want to forget those who have lost sons, daughters, husbands, mothers, and fathers for the freedom in which we enjoy this morning. I never want to forget those that I served with and those who didn’t come home. You may say, what freedom, well let’s take a look, we have freedom of religion, freedom to worship how we want, and to worship what ever God we feel we need to worship. Our flag stands for the freedom that we each enjoy today. Our flag stands for those who have given their lives to sacrifice so you can stand to say, you disagree. Not only does the American flag stand for the freedom as a country, but the Christian flag stands for the freedom we enjoy as Christians.
The Christian flag is the only free flag in the world. It is different from every other flag, religious or secular, ancient or modern. It is uncontrolled, independent, and universal. Unlike all national flags and all denominational flags of various churches, it has no earthly bonds or allegiances. Christ and Christ alone is its Master. Without limitation, it exists for the entire world’s people regardless of sex, race, national boundary, economic condition, affluence, or poverty, politics, slavery or freedom. It cannot be restricted by any nation or denomination. This unique, universal quality makes it like the air we breathe, belonging to all and yet owned by none. For those who want it, wherever and whenever, it is freely theirs.
The Christian flag is one of the oldest unchanged flags in the world. It was conceived at Brighton Chapel, Coney Island, New York, Sunday, September 26, 1897, and was presented in its present form the following Sunday by its originator. On that day, the Christian flag was born.
The white on the flag represents purity and peace. The blue stands for faithfulness, truth, and sincerity. Red, of course, is the color of sacrifice, in this case calling to mind the blood shed by Christ on Calvary, represented by the cross.
The first pledge to the Christian flag was written by Methodist pastor Lynn Harold Hough in 1908.
"I pledge allegiance to the Christian Flag and to the Savior for whose kingdom it stands. One brotherhood, uniting all mankind, in service and love."
Memorial Day started many years ago and there are two main versions of how it got started.
The first version started in April 1863, In Columbus, Mississippi after decorating the graves of her two sons who served during the Civil War as Confederate soldiers, an elderly woman also decorated two mounds at the corner of the cemetery. An observer asked, “What are you doing? Those are the graves of two Union soldiers.” Her reply was, “I know. I also know that somewhere in the North, a mother or a young wife mourns for them as we do for ours.” [This lady and a few others] set in motion what became known as Memorial Day.
The second version deals with the custom of placing flowers on the graves of the war dead which began on May 5, 1866 in Waterloo, New York, and Waterloo has been recognized by Congress as the official birthplace of Memorial Day. In 1868, General John A. Logan, then president of the Grand Army of the Republic, declared that May 30 would be a day to “decorate with flowers the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” After World War I the day was set aside to honor all of the American wars, and the custom was extended to pay homage to deceased relatives and friends, both military and civilian.
Let us all set up a memorial to remember what we were, and where we were so we will never forget where we have come from and what God has brought us from.
The commentator Paul Harvey tells the story of the undying gratitude that prompted an old man to visit an old broken pier on the eastern seacoast of Florida. Every Friday night, until his death in 1973, he would return, walking slowly and slightly stooped with a large bucket of shrimp. The sea gulls would flock to this old man, and he would feed them from his bucket. Many years before, in October 1942, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was on a mission in a B-17 to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea.
Somewhere over the South Pacific the Flying Fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio. Fuel ran dangerously low, so the men ditched their plane in the ocean. For nearly a month Captain Eddie and his companions would fight the water, weather, and the scorching sun. They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts.
But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable: starvation. Eight days out, their rations were long gone or destroyed by the salt water. It would take a miracle to sustain them. And a miracle occurred. “Something landed on my head. I knew that it was a sea gull. I don’t know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew too. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that gull. The gull meant food . . . if I could catch it.” And the rest, as they say, is history. Captain Eddie caught the gull. Its flesh was eaten. Its intestines were used for bait to catch fish. The survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because a lone sea gull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, offered itself as a sacrifice.
He never forgot. Because every Friday evening, about sunset, on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast, you could see an old man walking . . . white-haired, bushy-eye browed, slightly bent. His bucket was filled with shrimp to the brim to feed the gulls, to remember that one very special gull, which, on a day long past, gave itself without a struggle.
Just as Eddie Rickenbacker never forgot the gull that gave its life, we should never forget the soldiers of our country who gave up their lives. Eddie got a second chance at life, and because many brave men and women have died in the armed services fighting for our country’s freedom, we too have a chance at life – a life of freedom. Both freedom and life never come without a price. The blood of many fine soldiers paid for the freedom that we have today, just as the blood of the tiny lamb of the Passover paid for the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelites. A price has to be paid for freedom and life, and that price is the death of another. Someone, or something, has to die in order that we might live.
Our country’s soldiers died that we might have a life of freedom, and Jesus died that we might have life eternal. In the story of the Passover, the blood of a lamb was marked on the doorposts and this caused the destroyer to pass over the households that were marked, thus granting them life. This represented the cross of Jesus Christ upon which the very Lamb of God would give his own life that we might live forever in God’s kingdom.
Our soldiers died for our country’s freedom, and Jesus died for our spiritual freedom for he said in John 8:36, “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed,” and then in John 10:10 Jesus told us, “I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Jesus paid for our spiritual freedom and gave us a crown in heaven when he died on the cross. There is no freedom without the shedding of blood. We should never forget our many men and women who have died for our freedom here in America, and most importantly we must never forget our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave his own life on a cross that we might have eternal life. Amen
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