Moving into June...

I thought about writing something funny but guess I'm share about my weekend.

I just came back from Encounter Weekend on Sunday evening. It was a "WOW" for me in many ways - some too personal to go into. But to sum it up, I made my peace with God. And I left the Encounter with a sense of peace and freedom from the holds of discouragement and disillusionment the evil one was sowing in my head. The talks were not only coupled with power conviction but also with a great sense of depth. God answered the prayer I uttered to him all week - that He will reveal truths in our hearts so that we can live victorious lives for Him. The Spirit reveals our true human condition.

Listening to Ps Khong's sermon this morning about "Prayer that God Answers" really put things into perspective for me again...

It was a bank holiday monday yesterday here. I spent most of my time sleeping and catching up with sermons and cooking!! Last nite, I was meditating on my own life, asking the Holy Spirit truly for His empowerment so that I can walk a life in the spirit according to the purposes and potential God has for me. As we hit the month of June, another new wave is awaiting us in our journey with the Lord, to continue walking on that higher road and embracing all that comes with that journey. Going past whirlwinds, sandstorms, sunshine and yet keeping our two feet on the ground, walking firmly in the supernatural strength of Him who sustains, leads, comforts and affirms. Choose to walk that higher road. It is a process of refining our most fallible areas and transforming us into likeness in Him through the work of the Spirit. Baby steps, slowly but surely. Wisdom from Him in the way we respond to situations and people.

I'd truly like to share this exerpt. Prayerfully, do be still and quieten your heart as you read it. May the Lord speak to you as He spoke to me. It is quite long but worth the read!

Meeting Jesus in a Prison Camp

Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love. Always keep yourselves united in the Holy Spirit, and bind yourselves together with peace.

We are all one body, we have the same Spirit, and we have all been called to the same glorious future. There is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and there is only one God and Father, who is over us all and in us all and living through us all. However, he has given each one of us a special gift according to the generosity of Christ. That is why the Scriptures say,

"When he ascended to the heights, he led a crowd of captives and gave gifts to his people."

Notice that it says "he ascended." This means that Christ first came down to the lowly world in which we live. The same one who came down is the one who ascended higher that all the heavens, so that his rule might fill the universe.

He is the one who gave these gifts to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ, until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ. -Ephesians 4:1-13-

Before the movie, To End All Wars, was released to the general public, I was invited to a private screening, attended by thirty or so people at a theater in Colorado Springs. The movie was produced by Jack Hafer, directed by David Cunningham, and starred, among a host of foreign actors, the more recognizable Robert Carlyle and Kiefer Sutherland.

The film is based on a true story of Scottish prisoners of war that were held captive by the Japanese and forced to build the Burma-Thailand railway. The 415 kilometer route snaked through the sweltering jungle, across treacherous mountains, over swollen rivers and through mosquito-ridden swamps. Sixty-one thousand Allied prisoners of war worked on the railway, along with 270,000 Asian workers.

The Japanese estimated it would take five to six years to complete the railway. They gave the prisoners 18 months. It was finished in 12. It became known as "The Railway of Death." Eighty thousand died during construction, approximately 393 per mile.

The story opens with Japan's invasion of Singapore, where they capture a small group of retreating Allied soldiers, led by Lt. Col. Stuart McLean, Major Ian Campbell, Lt. Tom Tigden, and Captain Ernest Gordon, sending them to a prison camp in the sweltering jungles of Burma-Siam.

The story is based on Gordon's remembrances, originally published in 1963 as Through the Valley of the Kwai and re-released in 2002 with the title, To End All Wars. The Academy-Award-winning movie, Bridge Over the River Kwai, covers similar ground, though it is a more fictionalized account.

This account is truer, and grittier. The three-and-a-half years that Gordon and his comrades were imprisoned was a savage struggle for survival. Japanese guards murdered many of the prisoners without cause, gutting them with their bayonets, shooting them at point blank range with their pistols, beheading them with their swords. They drowned some of the prisoners, buried others alive, and others they put a water hose down their mouths, then jumped on their bloated stomachs, killing them.

The statistics were grim. Of the prisoners held by the Germans, four percent died. Of those held by the Japanese, twenty-seven percent died. And for those prisoners who worked on the Railway of Death, the percentage was even higher.

The daily ration of food per person was less than twelve ounces of poor quality rice. They were seldom given meat during the course of their incarceration, seldom given any other vegetables or fruit. As a result, many of the men died from starvation. Others died from diseases brought on by malnutrition, such as beriberi and pellagra. Depression among the men was rampant, party due to the Spartan diet, partly to the endless days of backbreaking labor, and partly due to the gradual deterioration of morale.

They slept in bamboo huts, without pillows or bedding. They bathed in bacteria-infested rivers. Their latrines were open pits of filth and stench. Malaria spread through the camp, as did dysentery, and later cholera.

There was no privacy. Guards were everywhere, always inspecting their quarters, keeping watch for any irregularities. If anyone was caught trying to escape, he was killed. If anyone was caught stealing, he was killed. If anyone was caught listening to a radio, he was killed. Death was the punishment for often the smallest of infractions.

Work began around 5:30 the morning. The prisoners were marched into the jungle, where they hacked a right of way through the tangled overgrowth, removed stones, and laid cross-ties. They worked in sometimes 120-degree heat, plagued by snakes, insects, and pouring rain. Men collapsed on the tracks, overcome by heat, exhaustion, and disease. Others were casualties of guards who broke the monotony of their work with sadistic forms of entertainment. The book records a number of such instances. A guard, for example, enraged at the slackness of some weary prisoner, threw a hammer at his head, killing him. In another instance, a Japanese engineer carefully instructed two prisoners in preparing a charge of dynamite, and while they were busy carrying out his instructions, he set off the charge, blowing them both to pieces. In still another case, guards pushed a boulder over the cliff to crush a handful of prisoners working below.

The movie shows men in the most inhuman of conditions not only regaining their humanity but transcending it. Although the story is told from Ernest Gordon's point of view, with a voice-over narration of his that is woven throughout the film, Dusty Miller is the character that unites the men, helping to birth in them and to nurture in them the heart of Christ. He is the chaplain of the group, the one who presides over funerals, who started the "church without walls," who serves the men, and encourages them. Although the movie doesn't go into detail about the church, the book does. It was held in the open for all who wanted to participate. It didn't matter if you were Catholic or Protestant, let alone what type of Catholic or what denomination of Protestant. All that mattered was that you loved Jesus or at least wanted to find out enough about him to decide for yourself whether or not he was worth loving. Coming together as the Body of Christ, they told their stories, read passages from the Bible, sang hymns, encouraged one another. They also asked for prayers, not just for themselves but for their loved ones back home. The church in one way or another helped many of them to survive. When Ernest, who attended the church, falls deathly ill, he is taken to the infirmary, where in and out of consciousness, he ponders the life he has thus far survived. "That's what you think about when you're dying," he says in a voice-over. "Your life. All that you've done. All that you might have done. If only you'd been given a second chance."

Dusty is the one who visits him there, feeds him, slowly nursing him back to health. Since rice is given only to able-bodied workers, those in the infirmary often languish away for lack of it. When Ernest asks Dusty where he got the food to feed him, Dusty tells him only that he has "his sources." With each day that Ernest gets stronger, Dusty gets weaker, until at last he finally collapses. It is then we learn that Dusty has been giving him his own rations. The way Dusty had cared for him, all that he had given him, to the point of giving up his own life, has a transforming effect on Ernest. Something of Jesus that was in Dusty takes birth in Ernest and lives in him, grows in him. Being strong enough now to be on his feet and working again, Ernest begins to serve Dusty the same way Dusty had served him. And not only Dusty, but others as well. He serves them by starting a school. Initially only six prisoners take part but later others join in. The first day of class, he raises the question to his students: "What is Justice?" And quoting Plato's Republic, he raises another: "What should happen to the just man should he enter this world?" No one answers, and Ernest quotes Plato's: "He would be scourged, chained, and crucified on a pole for all to see."

Through the "church without walls" and the makeshift college of liberal arts, the prisoners begin to regain their humanity. And with their humanity, their dignity. The book points out that one of the things that changes is the content of their prayers. Now they included their enemies, praying not for the power to overthrow them but rather for the power to forgive them. Not everyone, though, is convinced. At one of the meetings Major Ian Campbell states his own views on justice, believing "an eye for an eye" is the path they should take.

"And what place mercy?" Dusty asks him, then quotes the words of Jesus: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend. You have heard it said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,' but I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, for what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul, or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"

This is what is really at stake. Their souls. And whether they realized it or not, they were exchanging them for their hatred. At the end of the movie, Ernest poses the question: "What is the definition of hatred?" His definition: "When you look at the enemy . . . and see yourself."

You could see hatred in the face of the enemy. You could also see it in the faces of some of the prisoners, who returned the hate in kind. By the end of the movie, you see the same hate in Major Campbell's face that you do in the face of the Japanese commander. All in all, hate disfigures only a handful of men, while love, to some degree or another, transfigures the others. The change happens slowly. A kind word at a time. A generous deed. A smile. But one by one the men do change.

Dusty Miller. Ernest Gordon. Yanker.

Yanker, the American P.O.W., played by Kiefer Sutherland, is probably the most striking transformation. Initially he is a selfish profiteer, trafficking in black-market goods he trades to his fellow prisoners. He is caught one day, stretched out, and staked to the ground to endure days of blistering heat, pelting rain, gnawing hunger, unbearable thirst, and painful isolation. During the ordeal, Yanker has a lot of time to think about the soul he has exchanged for some commodity or another . . . a lot of time to think about the words Dusty had spoken . . . a lot of time to think about Dusty's life, and Gordon's, and some of the others. A lot of time. Against all odds, Yanker survives. Later in the movie when the railroad is completed, guards round up the tools and discover that a shovel is missing. The Japanese commander threatens the prisoners, saying he will punish the entire group if the guilty man doesn't step forward. Yanker steps forward. The commander circles him menacingly, then beats him with a shovel. In the movie, Yanker survives the beating, but in fact he was beaten to death. Only afterwards is it learned that the guard was mistaken, and that all the shovels were accounted for.

Yanker---the man who thought only of himself, who looked out only for himself---this man laid down his life for his friends.

Later in the story, a failed overthrow of the camp leaves two guards dead, and the five prisoners responsible are rounded up. Four are shot in the back of the head. The fifth is Major Ian Campbell. The Japanese commander raises his sword to behead him. In the ancient code of the Samurai warrior, known as the Bushido, it was considered an honor to be punished in place of one's superior. Knowing the Japanese commander would be bound by honor to uphold this tradition, Dusty steps forward, stopping the execution, and talks privately with him.

"Take this man instead," the commander orders. Turning to Major Campbell, he says in disgust, "You are free." The guards take Dusty, beat him, nail him to a cross, where they lift him up and leave him to die. The movie raises some penetrating questions:

"Who is my neighbor?"

"How many times shall I forgive my brother?"

"What does it mean to love one's enemy?"

"What can a man get in exchange for his soul?"

One question it doesn't ask, not explicitly anyway. Yet it seems to ask it on an almost subliminal level. The question is this: What does it mean to be the Body of Christ? What is the Church, really, and why is it here?

It exists for one reason, and one reason only.

To transform us.

To transform us not only into the likeness of Christ.

But into the fullness of that likeness.

That fullness is measured by our willingness to lay down our lives for our friends.

And our readiness to offer forgiveness to our enemies.

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Dear Lord,

Thank you for your Church, the Body of Christ. Forgives us for not knowing very much what that means. Forgive us for our professionalism, for spending so much time trying to dress it up and make it presentable to the world, respectable to the world, or worse, marketable to the world.

Forgive us our perfectionisms as we forgive those who are perfectionistic against us.

Help us to value what you value, and the way you value it. The prostitute's perfume, for example, mingled with her tears. Mary sitting at your feet, looking up to you with her adoring eyes. John's head against your chest at the Last Supper, the beat of your heart in his ear.

How precious were those moments were to you, Lord. Help me to love you the way they did and the way those prisoners of war did.

Thank you for those who in great adversity have shown us what it means to be the Body of Christ, When I saw the men who were the "church without walls," I saw you, Jesus. Through serving each other, sharing gifts with each other, sacrificing for each other, they grew up not only into your likeness but into your fullness.

For the good glimpse of you that they gave in such a godless place,

I thank you . . .