Sin Produces Veterans

On the very weekend after we observed Veterans Day, we were reminded that as long as this sinful world stands there will be conflict.  Terrorism struck far from the Middle East.  Any illusion that such terrorism can be contained was exploded on the streets of Paris.  It is not an overstatement to say that Armistice Day, commemorating the cessation of fighting in World War I, observes only one temporary break in conflict between men and nations.   The change from Armistice Day to Veteran’s Day is testimony that the War to End All Wars wasn’t that at all.  Sin will always make it necessary for nations and men to defend themselves or come to the aid of others.  That will continue to touch lives.  Our long-time neighbors across the road from the farm where I grew up were Joe & Dan McIntyre. They were brothers who never married. When they became so elderly and ill that they needed to enter a nursing home, neighbors were invited to help clean out the house. In a tiny attic one-window room containing only an old wooden chair I found a poignant scene I will never forget. As a young man Dan had fought in France in WWI. Apparently when the war was over he simply came home, laid his army trousers across the seat of the chair, hung his jacket and hat over the back and went back to farming. There that uniform stayed until I saw it there. Faded from the sun and covered with dust, it was a silent testimony to the citizen soldier who served his country, came home, and got on with life. And while he farmed and raised his sheep, other men and women were drawn into combat in the Pacific and across Europe, in Korea and in Viet Nam.  And that WWI uniform hung there on that chair, fading in the sun of decade after decade.  Though I was a young kid and might have considered that quite a find, I never touched it. It seemed like a kind of memorial both to lost youth and the quiet determination to serve & survive. And long after Joe and Dan have gone home to heaven, wars persist – because sin is still with us.  The great Reformer Martin Luther had it right: “When I think of a solider fulfilling his office by punishing the wicked, and creating much misery, it seems an un-Christian work completely contrary to Christian love.  But when I think of how it protects the good and keeps and preserves wife and child, house and farm, property, honor and peace, then I see how precious and godly this work is...”   “What men write about war saying that it is a great plague is all true.  But they should consider also how great the plague is that war prevents.”  (Can Soldiers Too Be Saved? 1526 LW, p. 96)

The attacks in Paris have shown us that in this sinful world there are great plagues that can only be prevented by those willing to be soldiers.  It may be past Veteran’s Day now, but thank a vet anyway.  Thank God for those who served and those who serve.  The world would be a much more terrible place without them.  And pray for those who will have to make the decision to send soldiers into harm’s way.  They need all the guidance and wisdom they can get.

“For he is God’s servant to do you good.  But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.  He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath, to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.”  (The apostle Paul speaking of the purpose of civil government, Romans 13:4)