IN MEMORIAM
Pastor Eric J. Hanson
INTRODUCTION
American history is replete with heroes whose great personal qualities came from a deep well of a fine upbringing in which upstanding personal character, faith in God and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and duty to others were deeply instilled.
Today, on the occasion of Memorial Day, I would like to introduce you to some of these outstanding citizens, many of whom who have gone on to enjoy that greater citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven. Let’s now get acquainted with them as we explore amazing things in memoriam.
LEMUEL HAYNES
Going back to the time of the American War of Independence, let’s consider a person that probably no one here is familiar with. This man; Revolutionary War veteran, Lemuel Haynes lived for some 80 years in New England. Here is his amazing story.
One of the Minutemen of the battle of Lexington was Lemuel Haynes. His story is a jewel of God’s redemption of difficult situations. He was born out of wedlock to a black father and the daughter of a prominent white family in Hartford. When little Lemuel was 5 months of age, his parents abandoned him and he was indentured to a white family in Massachusetts. After he gained his freedom by fulfilling the terms of his indentured service, Lemuel studied Latin, Greek and Theology in his 20s, under the tutelage area pastors. He then became licensed to preach in 1780. In 1783, he became the pastor of West Parish Congregation; the first black pastor in America to serve a white church. He fell in love with and married a young white woman in his Connecticut church family, and together they raised ten children. In 1785 he received full ordination. He went on to receive an honorary Master’s degree from Middlebury College, and then served at three more churches before his death at age 80. His tenure in Rutland Vermont lasted for 30 years.
Postscript: The highly disciplined, courageous and hard working Haynes is today a member of the White House heroes of Freedom. After his death, a treatise he authored back in 1776 was discovered, in which he roundly condemned slavery as sin, and declared the hypocrisy of any man fighting for his own freedom, while enslaving others.
THOMAS JONATHAN “STONEWALL” JACKSON
Now let’s consider a Confederate Civil War figure who is today a member of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson was a military genius. At age 18, in 1842, he secured an appointment to West Point. After graduating, he served with distinction in the Mexican-American war. He then taught at the Virginia Military Institute for the next 10 years until the Civil War broke out. He was opposed to succeeding from the Union, but remained loyal to Virginia when was came. After his first battle in that conflict, Manassas Junction, he was dubbed Stonewall for his stubborn refusal to retreat when the battle was hot.
General Jackson is especially remembered for his Christian Witness and influence. Early in his military career, he converted to being a follower of Jesus and built a large Sunday School, especially for slaves from plantations near the Virginia Military Institute. Throughout his career, and especially during the war, he promoted worship, prayer, and the study of Scripture among his troops.
This highly respected General would even share the Gospel around the campfires at night during the war. Jackson was elected to the Hall of Fame of Great Americans in 1955.
CLARA BARTON
This amazing woman was called the “Angel of the Battlefield” by the Union Troops in the Civil War. From the very beginning of the war she organized the efforts to medically care for the wounded, and to get their needs for food, transportation, and pensions met. She routinely braved artillery and rifle fire to tend to the wounded in battle. Her fame among the soldiers was so great that many of them went home, had daughters, and named the girls Clara in her honor.
Prior to the war she had been a schoolteacher from 1842 till 1852, in her native Oxford, Massachusetts. After that time, she had started a school in New Jersey where they had no free schools. Teaching the first six months for no pay, she saw the new school grow from seven children to over 200 in the space of that one school year. After three years, the town built a new schoolhouse to house the burgeoning population of students. At this time, 1855, Clara moved to Washington DC and worked in the US Patent office until the war broke out.
As the Civil war was winding down, President Lincoln asked Clara to head up and to coordinate the national effort to find out what had happened to the staggering 69,000 men who were missing in action. Miss Barton spent the next four years tirelessly doing this very difficult task. She traveled the nation and declared that she would rather be back in battle than standing before these packed town halls doing this grim search.
After the four year national project came to an end in 1869, Clara, who had heard about the new International Red Cross, started an American branch and began organizing people all over America to respond to both natural and man made disasters. Perhaps the defining moment for this great organization came during the infamous and devastating Johnstown Pennsylvania flood in 1889. The Red Cross pretty much re-built the town in the wake of the dam burst that had killed 2000 people outright, flattened the town, and seriously injured over 900 others. The doctors, nurses, and carpenters of the American Red Cross volunteer army accomplished amazing things on behalf of suffering thousands.
Clara stayed involved in this great work until her death in 1915.
One of the memorials to Clara Barton shows her praying, which she often did. Where else could she have received the strength needed for her amazing life work, but from the Lord.
ALVIN YORK
This Tennessee rifleman had been a hard drinking, hard cursing young man for a while. Then a great revival preacher had come to his town. Alvin York gave his life to Jesus Christ and repented very deeply in 1917. All who knew him witnessed the great change in him. Then came America’s involvement in World War I. At first he did not want to go to war because of his convictions concerning being peaceable. Later, when he became convinced to go, he became one of the greatest soldiers ever.
On October 18th 1918, Corporal York and his 16 Tennessee Riflemen were given the impossible assignment to take out several German machine gun nests. Quickly nine of them were gunned down, leaving Corporal York and 7 others with this grim task. York took the lead, worked himself carefully into a strategic position and this champion sharp shooter began to pick off German soldiers one by one. After he had gotten 20 of them, he managed to capture the very alarmed officer of the German group who understood English. With his gun in the officer’s back, he got him to surrender the position. As he and his men marched the Germans back to the American Front, they continued to collect prisoners, bringing in 132 Germans, 35 machine guns, and the wounded Americans who had fallen on the field. German Field Marshall Foch called what York had done, the “greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all the armies of Europe”. Promoted soon thereafter, the brave and pious Alvin became famous as Sergeant York. Then the war ended on November 11th.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
One person we honor today needs no introduction to many of you. Dwight David Eisenhower’s grandfather had greatly supported Messiah College in Pennsylvania. The parents of this future general and president, met there at Messiah while they were students.
The young Dwight grew up aiming at excellence. He starred in both basketball and football, gaining his famous nick name “Ike” during his teen years. He won an appointment to West Point in 1911, and was a promising half back on the football team until a knee injury put an end to that. After graduating in 1915, he met Mamie and they married on the same day he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant: July 1, 1916. When the USA entered World War I, Ike organized one of the first Tank Corps, and earned the Distinguished Service Medal. After the war he served in many Army posts and capacities, even learning to fly fighter planes and then training pilots in the Philippines. During World War II, promotions and amazing successes in battle came one after another for Ike. After leading the successful invasion of Europe on D Day in 1944, Ike then led the troop on to victory in driving the Nazis back into Germany. He was promoted to General of the Army and given 5 stars on December 20th of that year to lead the final push to victory in Europe. After the war ended, he served as Army Chief of Staff, retiring in 1948 to become president of Columbia University. He switched between Columbia and the Army several times to modernize and unify the command structure, and to put NATO into place across Western Europe to stand against military aggression by the Soviet Union.
In 1952, this great American tested the presidential election waters. His great early success in this caused him to resign from NATO and to retire again from the Army. He then was elected President in a landslide victory and served two honorable terms, with no scandals, no rumors of mistresses like Roosevelt and Kennedy, and no back room deals for cronies. Simply no tainting at all…
After retiring to the Gettysburg area in 1961 for a few years, the former president’s heart began to fail. The devout Ike called for old friend Billy Graham to come to his bedside. The two men reviewed the steps of salvation, so long familiar to the president. Dwight had asked Billy to go over the plan of salvation once again because “nothing else matters now”. Then they prayed together to cap off this exchange by re-affirming that their trust for salvation was based upon the saving work of the Lord and our faith in Him.
A few days later, the long distinguished life of service of a great American, and a devout believer in Jesus Christ, came to its conclusion.
There are so many others whom we could memorialize today. There are also living Americans who have done great Godly exploits while also serving their country. May God continue to raise up such men and women who put the Lord first, and whom God can use in unselfish service.
Application:
We are now living in an era when the deep rooted Judeo-Christian ethic and Bible based World View of these heroes is becoming very rare in the high leadership of our Land. It is very important that you and I, as believers in Jesus Christ, be like those whose memory we honor today. We are all called to live our lives according to the Bible’s high standards of honesty and of personal integrity in sexual and financial matters. Our word should be our bond. Employers should know that they can count on us as excellent workers. Family should know that we are there to serve, train, and protect them. The community should know that they can turn to us when the chips are down. We should be friends in deed and not just in words. We should also stand against the hidden works of darkness.
Let’s read the following powerful verses and go out meditating on these truths. (Read Ephesians 5: 1-12) I also recommend the rest of this chapter for your further study at home.
Give a challenge…
Let’s pray.
