Monthly Archives: May 2015

John McCrae stood staring at the simple wooden coffin.

It contained the remains of his dear friend Alexis Helmer.

McCrae was many things: a physician, author, artist and a poet. And now he was also a soldier. When England declared war on Germany, McCrae’s native Canada, a dominion of the British Empire, entered the war too.

From a hastily dug 8 foot by 8 foot bunker, McCrae treated wounded soldiers. It was during the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium. The fighting had been fierce. There were many casualties.

On this day, May 2, 1915, during the second year of World War I, Alexis Helmer joined the dead.

Alex and John had been close friends from the time they signed up in the Canadian Expeditionary Force at the outbreak of the war. Together, the men had traveled far from home and family to fight for freedom and for the empire. In a letter written to his mother, John described the battle at Ypres as a “nightmare.”

“In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds … And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way.”

John McCrae could have enlisted in the medical corps, given his training, background and his age – he was 41. Instead, he volunteered for a fighting unit as a gunner and medical officer. His father had been a military leader and had taught young John the importance of duty and of defending his country.

Now Alex was dead.

Lieutenant Colonel McCrae, filling in for the chaplain who had been called away, conducted the funeral of his friend. He remembered Alex, just so recently pulsating with life, courage and determination. A good and loyal friend he was. Now, suddenly, he was gone.

John was crushed with grief, even as he was filled with pride.

Later that evening, May 3, John sat in the back of an ambulance and wondered about what Alex and all the others who had fallen might say to those who would live after them. He composed a poem but was so disappointed in his effort that he discarded it.

Soldiers retrieved McCrae’s poem and persuaded him to submit it. It made its way into publication – and immortality. One hundred years later, it remains a hauntingly beautiful tribute to the fallen dead of every battlefield – and a poignant reminder to us all.

Flanders fields stretched east and west across the far-flung battle line. For many years, it had been noted that red poppies would often grow over soldiers’ graves. Because of the torn and heavily-limed soil, the poppy was one of the few plants that could grow on a battlefield. In 1855, British historian Lord Macaulay wrote about a battle near Ypres in Belgium in 1693:

“The next summer the soil, fertilized by twenty thousand corpses, broke forth into millions of poppies. The traveler who … saw that vast sheet of rich scarlet … could hardly help fancying that the figurative prediction of the Hebrew prophet was literally accomplished, that the earth was disclosing her blood – and refusing to cover the slain.” (Isaiah 26: 21).

McCrae made mention of this phenomenon in the memorable first line of his war poem:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 It may be, as some witnessed, that McCrae looked at the grave of his friend before he wrote the second stanza about the loved and the lost: We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. McCrae writes of the legacy of the fallen dead and the duty of every succeeding generation to keep faith:

 Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

 Presidential candidates – even the brother of the president who waged it – have recently been scrambling to say that, “knowing what we know now”, the war in Iraq was “a mistake.”

That may or may not be true. History will judge.

For the 4,491 young Americans who fought and died in Iraq – those who once “lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow” and who “loved and were loved” – laying down their lives for their country was not “a mistake”. It was their “last full measure of devotion.”

Jesus said there is no greater proof of love than the sacrifice of one’s life for others.

The men and women who died in Iraq – and the more than 2,200 who have died in Afghanistan – are no less heroes worthy of our remembrance than are John McCrae and Alexis Helmer.

To you and me, from “failing hands”, the torch of freedom has been passed. May we always “hold it high.” May we never forget those who carried it bravely into battle – for us and for our children.

The fields where “poppies grow” remind us.

John McCrae died in 1918, just as World War I ended. He was 45.

May God bless you and your family.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

A cool, gentle breeze ruffled the tree branches overhead.

Beth and I were at our daughter’s home. We had just finished lunch and were enjoying sitting in the spacious backyard watching our grandchildren play.

I thought about family and how blessed we are. Beth’s parents had joined us for lunch. They’re in great health at 83. I considered the beauty and joy of four generations together in a backyard on a perfect Sunday.

These gatherings are always special.

Family’s great. And family’s important.

In recent times the American family has changed – a lot.

The redefinition of “family” has been moving forward with breakneck speed.

This spring, as Americans traditionally celebrate Motherhood and Fatherhood, five men and three women, sitting on an unelected United States Supreme Court, are on the verge of morally re-aligning civilization. These justices will decide if the covenant institution of marriage will be expanded to include gay men and women. They have been asked to sanction homosexual union as a constitutional right.

Much of the argument before the Court, on both sides, has invoked children and the role of procreation in advancing society. This pending decision has as much to do about family as it does about marriage.

They are inextricably linked.

Marriage cannot be redefined without changing the meaning of being a mother. And what it means to be a father.

Our founders could appeal to “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” in making their eloquent case for fundamental human dignity and freedom. In a western culture now steeped in moral relativism and spiritual rebellion, the case for gay marriage appeals to neither. Instead, it defies both.

The advocates of this unnatural alteration have public opinion squarely on their side. Never in American history has the tide turned so swiftly and dramatically. With a politically shrewd strategy and a sympathetic media, proponents have outmaneuvered, out-talked and out-hustled their adversaries. They have intimidated the voices of traditional morality into incoherence and ultimately silence.

They have won. And we’ve all seen this coming for some time.

Our churches often seem at a loss to address the central moral and spiritual issues at stake. They too have been intimidated – cowered by the harangues against “intolerance” and “bigotry” – and too anxious to sell their spiritual birthright for a hot bowl of popular cultural stew.

Who wants to be a religious Neanderthal?

The present famine of God’s Word has made us drink the sand of a moral desert.

Still, might doesn’t always make right.

In fact, history shows us the frequent fallacy of shifting opinion and political totalitarianism – and the undeniable consequences of moral decline.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is, after all, supposed to be a judicious arbiter and not a strident ideologue, pondered the serious implications of the court’s decision during oral arguments.

Not least of all because he may cast the deciding vote.

“This definition (of traditional marriage) has been with us for millennia,” Kennedy observed. “And it’s very difficult for the court to say, “Oh well, we know better.’”

That reluctance was previously echoed by a lower court judge:

“A dose of humility makes us hesitant to condemn as unconstitutionally irrational a view of marriage shared not long ago by every society in the world.”

Yet without a vision of God, “the people cast off restraint”(Proverbs 29:18, NIV).

I’m not sure what Justice Kennedy had in mind when he spoke of “millennia”, but the first book of the Bible describes the arrangement that he and his black-robed colleagues may soon overturn:

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27, KJV, emphasis added). Later, when the Book of Beginnings describes the creation of woman, it says:

“This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one” (Genesis 2:24, NLT, emphasis added).

Jesus quotes this directly as God’s plan “from the beginning” (Matthew 19:4-5) and the apostle Paul also endorses it explicitly in his letter to the Ephesians (5:31).

Gay marriage or the Bible: they can’t both be right.

And while some insist God got this wrong, I’ll take my chances.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, in an article titled Saving Civilization, writes:

“When a man and woman make a lifetime commitment to one another they each benefit from the resulting stability, sensuality, and happiness. When a wife revels in her femininity and her husband submits his masculinity to the silken bonds of matrimony, the couple and children they create form a cocoon of security and joy.”

That’s why today, on our National Day of Prayer, I will pray for mothers and fathers and children and families. And it’s also why this Sunday I will rejoice in the celebration of womanhood and motherhood. I’ll thank God for my beautiful wife and three lovely daughters, two of whom are also mothers. I’ll offer praise for the women and mothers who guided history and have helped to change the world.

And, along with millions of my fellow Americans who will never surrender, I’ll thank God for the greatest institution, next to the Church, in the history of the earth:

The God-ordained family. Then, now and forever.