No More Death Marches

I had the distinct honor this morning of officiating the service celebrating the life of one of my uncles, Uncle Del. Uncle Del was a veteran of WWII, a member of the 9th Army Air Corps flying missions out of England. On his 31st and final mission before being sent home, the B-26 on which he was the radioman, suffered a direct hit near the coastal town of Te Havre, France, going down in the English Channel. He was able to parachute out and was picked up by a German patrol boat, was taken was questioning on the coast, then loaded into a railroad boxcar with other prisoners, and sent to Eastern Prussia to Stalag Luft 4, a P.O.W. camp in what is now Poland. Thus began, in Uncle Del's words, " . . . a year of hell . . .", a year of imprisonment and, finally, forced marching as the Nazi's tried to keep the mobile prison population ahead of the advancing Allied Forces. In Uncle Del's words, when he and a couple of the other prisoners realized they were being marched in large circles until they fell over dead or were unable to go further, they escaped, being hidden in the barn of a German farmer until they could make it back to Allied lines. Bottom line, unlike so many like him, Uncle Del did come home and, now, some 63 years later, he is Home for good.

From where I am, upon returning home to his family, Uncle Del made a conscious decision not to participate in any more death marches. No more decisions were going to be made by others who didn't care if he lived or died. No more marching with others in charge who, themselves, were escaping an enemy they could not conquer. No more waiting for death to do its grisly work while footsteps taken reflected only the oozing blood of his battered soul. No more death marches, only steps toward life and Home.

It makes me wonder how many of us today are highly offended by the notion of such death marches, unable to comprehend how any human being could inflict such cruelty on another human being . . . and, yet, unwittingly do the same things to ourselves and others through the thoughtless decisions we make each day. It really makes me wonder.

I wonder how many are on circular death marches, driving daily to jobs which barely pay the cost for the gas that it takes to make the drive. I wonder how many are on circular death marches, financed by easy credit which encourages a debt load that would sink a ship at credit card interest rates which are, in and of themselves, inhumane. I wonder how many are on circular death marches, believing deliverance is just around the next bend of federal or state economic relief incentives, buying into the political rhetoric of their personal financial security always being someone else's responsibility.

I wonder how many are on circular death marches, purchasing productive ground to be covered with the asphalt and concrete of progress, while children worldwide die for lack of enough to eat. I wonder how many are on circular death marches, driving luxury SUV's and cars plush enough to live in, while demanding the government come up with alternative fuels cheap enough to maintain their opulent lifestyle without having to forfeit any of their advantages. I wonder how many are on circular death marches, buying into the emerging 'green movement' as a way of reducing our nation's dependency on oil rich countries, while resenting the very people who grow the alternative fuel sources as not doing enough to keep the cost of food and related byproducts as economical as before they were being used for fuels.

If one dares to ponder long enough, at one time or another we are all a part of death marches: some are doing the marching and some are forcing others to march for them, but all are part of the circular pattern of unchanging demands for more from life, while offering less to life from the very giftedness God has placed in each person. Jesus breaks the vicious cycle in a profound expression of faithfulness to God - and was crucified for it. Many want change, few want to be changed . . . and the death march goes on.

The empty tomb offers hope for Life, for a journey lived upon a path which leads to Home, not just to the same old places we have been before. Like survivors of a war we did not start, but of which we have been a part, it is ours to choose whether or not we will escape the death march's cruelty and seek out Home on a path with One who loves us, or stay where we are, waiting for death to claim us and grant sweet relief from that we would not leave.

I will miss my Uncle Del, but I am glad for him that he is Home, his march over, his claim of Life complete. I am grateful he escaped the enemy and, in so doing, lived to go forward in life as the Author of life intended. I am grateful, too, that in his escaping the circular death marches he lived to tell the story that others like me might screw up the courage to make a break for Life, as well. It is a Life lesson not lost on those with ears to hear.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don