forgiveness

Pearl Harbor – A Story of Forgiveness and Salvation?

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    Seventy-one years ago today the Japanese navy, led by 36 year-old “top gun” pilot of his day, Mitsuo Fuchida, attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  The surprise was nearly total and the destruction was immense both physically as well as to the psyche of the United States.  The Japanese admiralty expected that such devastation would compel the United States to sue for peace and stay out of their plans for expansion in the Pacific.  Instead, our nation was filled with a “terrible resolve.”  Our reaction was not to surrender but to get even.  The death and destruction (on all sides) that spread across the Pacific and around the world was nearly incalculable.  Tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of men and women went to their deaths for reasons that, even now, are difficult to explain.


    For his part, Mitsuo Fuchida, was plagued by the death that he had witnessed and that which he had been a part of and he struggled to find a way to bring a message of peace to the world.  A friend who had been a prisoner of war in the United States, told him an amazing, almost impossible, story that revealed a way toward peace.  Later still he encountered the message of Jacob DeShazer, a B-25 bombardier captured by the Japanese after the Doolittle raid.  DeShazer, despite being treated horrifically during his imprisonment, had learned an amazing lesson as well during his confinement.  He traveled to Japan and spoke in venues across the country telling of the peace that he had found in their POW camp.

    Nathan Naversen has written a great story about this and I used it as a devotion at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting this morning.  It is an amazing story of peace and forgiveness that grew out of ome of history’s greatest periods of death and destruction.  How is this possible?  Read the whole story here:

From Pearl Harbor to Golgotha

September 11, 2001 – 10 years later

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Help us overcome, Lord, this evil which has descended
Help us understand, Lord, why so many lives too soon have ended

Help us heal, Lord, as we recover from the pain
Help us cope, Lord, show us sunshine after the rain

We put our trust in you, Lord, as you watch us from on high
Help us grieve, Lord, and hold us while we cry

Written by Jim Lane
Fair Oaks, CA , September 2001

This morning in church we remembered.  Many in our congregation could remember exactly where they were and what they were doing on the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked and the same applies to the days that John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Ronald Reagan was shot, and Challenger exploded.  Likewise we remember where we were ten years ago today during the events of September 11, 2001.  Although  we will likely never forget, I pray that God will continue to bring healing to all those who were wounded both physically, mentally and spiritually.  Similarly, I pray that we will learn the right lessons of September 11th.  There are many messages but I pray that we hear the messages taught to us in scripture, messages of love, forgiveness, healing and hope and not the messages that we sometimes hear that play to our baser instincts to hate, destroy and seek revenge and retribution.

This morning’s worship service began by reading together from the Psalms and remembering that we find strength in God’s tower and not in towers of our own making.  The opening prayer was the one I have included above.  It was written by a fellow rocketry hobbyist and an online friend, Jim Lane in 2001 after the events of September 11th.  It sums up many of the feelings that we had then and feelings that have resurfaced this week as we remember.  I include it here with his kind permission.  Thank you Jim.

My message this morning was a story of remembrance but also a reminder that the thing that makes followers of Jesus Christ different is our calling to love and forgive our enemies.  This is not an easy thing, in fact, it may well be one of the hardest things that we can do but Jesus tells us that our own forgiveness depends upon it.

Sunday’s message, September 11, 2011 – a service of remembrance and reminder.