(Mt 5:43-45a; Col
3:13b) (11/9/14)
A. INTRODUCTION
1. I grew up in a family of
veterans, in a town of veterans. I can
remember standing in the back of my Grandpa’s shop listening to the
conversations. That day it was whether
or not they were going to be subject to the draft for the Korean War. One of them, the town trucker had been in the
Battle of the Bulge. He was one of the
town characters and the war stories about him were amazing. Another, the editor of the local paper had
been a POW in Germany for three years.
My uncle Dean had been a navigator on a B-29 in the Pacific. His plane had been hit over Japan and had
lost all of electrical systems, all of his navigation systems. Using celestial bodies he navigated the plane
back to the island of Tinian. That was
like navigating from South Dakota to Dallas, TX and finding an island the size
of Dallas Love Field with ocean around it as far as the eye could see. Until recently, I never understood how big a
deal that was or how many planes in the Pacific took off and were simply never
heard from again because of poor radios, or unreliable planes, or navigations
systems that weren’t up navigating hundreds of miles over water with absolutely
no reference to anything. Just
water.
2. The town appreciated its
veterans. Veteran’s Day was a big deal.
3. Our last trip to South Dakota,
Rosemary’s younger sister, Virginia, a big reader, had two books for me as a
gift. She’s big about buying used books
off the internet and she’s a WWII buff.
One of the books had been on the top of my reading list for some time,
but I had kept buying others instead of getting to it. Its title was “Unbroken” and maybe it is the
most unforgettable story of WWII and of veterans ever. Ever.
4. And I guess I never
appreciated the brutality of the war, especially the war in the Pacific. In the Pacific, of the Allied POWs held by
the Japanese, 132,000 of them, one-quarter of them died in captivity. They were especially hard on Americans. Thirty-seven percent of the Americans held in
Japanese Prisoner of War camps died.
Unbroken is one man’s story.
Unbroken is one man’s story.
B. THE MOVIE
1. On Christmas Day, you’ll
have a chance to see a movie released in theaters, “Unbroken,” directed by
Angelina Jolie. Angelina Jolie doesn’t
taken on minor projects. This is a movie
of significance. This will be a
significant movie. But what I want to
tell you is not the story of the movie, but as Paul Harvey used to say, “The
rest of the story.”
2. But the rest of the story
does need some introduction. I’m going
to show you the movie trailer and even that needs some introduction so that you
can understand what you are seeing.
a. This is the story of Louie
Zamperini, an Italian American boy from a good Catholic family and whose
mother’s prayers sustained him.
b. He grew up in California and
he probably had ADHD, unknown at that time.
He was always in trouble until his big brother, Pete, channeled his
energies into running.
c. In his senior year in high
school he ran the fastest high school mile in the world.
d. By the age of 19 he tied the
American record holder in the 5000 meter race and qualified for the 1936 Berlin
Olympics where he led all Americans and ran the last quarter mile in 56 seconds
to finish seventh. Hitler shook his hand
and called him the fast finisher.
e. His dream was to be the gold
medalist in the 1940 Olympics that was to be in Tokyo, Japan. It wasn’t to be.
3. Louie Zamperini became a
B-24 bombardier in the Pacific. When he
and his crew were on a search mission for another crew that had been lost at
sea, their B-24 lost two engines and they were lost at sea as well.
4. Three of them survived the
crash. They drifted for 47 days starting
with a few chocolate bars and six pints of water. Forty Seven Days!
a.
They learned that if they pulled a tarp over them, that albatross would
land on them, and if they were quick they could reach us and grab their
legs. These birds were scavengers and
they were putrid.
b.
Louie also though that maybe he could catch one of the small sharks
that circled the raft. The first time he
tried, it pulled him into the water.
When it turned back on him, he slammed his hand into its nose and
scrambled back into the raft. He tried a
smaller one and this time he immediately pulled the shark’s tail out of the
water and pulled it into the boat.
Supposedly, the only part of value was its liver and they used the rest
of the carcass as bait.
c.
Forty seven days! At one point
they went seven days between rains and drinks of water.
5. In forty seven days they had
drifted 2000 miles and washed up on a Pacific island only to become Japanese
Prisoners of War. Thus started a
grueling three years of continuous brutality.
6. So here’s the clip, the
trailer of the movie. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8mBzKLhL0U)
7. I don’t know how the movie
will be able to portray the brutality they experienced. They sometimes existed on no food or two or
three cups of seaweed a day. In their
final POW camp which was in Northern Japan, they were slaves in either coal
mines or salt mines and beaten everyday, most frequently by a monster the POWs
called “The Bird.”
C. THE REST OF THE STORY
1. Now the rest of the
story. Louie will tell you that all this
time that he was sustained by his Mother’s prayers and by angels, spirits of
divine service (Hebrews 1:14) that had protected him. Although he didn’t recognize it at the time,
there were miracles that occurred at his darkest hours that saved him.
2. Even though the war was
over, it wasn’t over for Louie.
a.
Here he was a celebrity, an Olympic athlete that had endured. He was a hero. He even captivated and married the girl of
his dreams over her parent’s objections.
b.
A hero, but he was haunted every night by unbelievable nightmares. “The Bird” beat him unmercifully in his
dreams. He couldn’t get away from
him. He wanted to choke him. Revenge became an obsession for him.
c.
His only escape was the bottle.
For four years he drowned his dreams.
But of course he couldn’t. He
decided his only hope was to return to Japan and find and kill “The Bird.”
d.
By the fourth year he had lost everything. One night lying in bed beside his wife who
was now nine month’s pregnant, he experienced a terrible nightmare and awoke to
find himself choking his wife and her screaming at him.
e.
After the baby was born, she left him in California and returned to her
parents in Florida.
3. Later that year, she came
back to Los Angeles to divorce him.
Cynthia and Louie were in the hall of their apartment building when they
bumped into a new couple and began a conversation that was pleasant until the
couple mentioned that there was a revival in town. A young preacher by the name of Billy Graham was
launching his first extended crusade. It
was 1949 and Billy was just beginning his ministry. (It was the 1949 Greater Los Angeles Revival
that defined Billy Graham as an evangelist) Louie didn’t want to hear anything
of it and turned and left.
a.
Cynthia came back to the apartment and asked Louie to take her that
night. He refused. She said, then I’m going alone. That’s alright, he had drinking to do.
b.
Cynthia came back on fire. She wasn’t
going to divorce him. Louie was elated
until he realized she had had a religious awakening and that turned him
sour. Cynthia wanted him to go with her. She begged him for a week. He finally relented.
4. That night Billy talked
about the woman brought to Jesus who had been caught in adultery and Jesus
kneeling and writing in the sand. What
did they see him write? Could it have
been their life story? Billy said, “God
takes in everything about your life from the day you are born until the day you
die. And when you stand before God on
that judgment day, they are going to pull down the screen and run the movie
that will include everything you did, everything you said, everything you
thought. You are going to say, ‘I was a
good man’ but your own deeds, your own words, your own thoughts are going to
condemn you. And he is going to say,
‘depart from me.’” Billy told of hell
and salvation. And he said, “Tonight
there is a drowning man, a drowning woman, a drowning boy, a drowning girl that
is out lost in the sea of life.”
Louie knew he was talking about him but he wouldn’t accept it. He became angry and grabbed Cynthia’s arm and bolted for the door.
That night he experienced the nightmares again. Bird had taken off his belt striking him alongside his head with his buckle. He was looking at the face of the Devil.
Louie knew he was talking about him but he wouldn’t accept it. He became angry and grabbed Cynthia’s arm and bolted for the door.
That night he experienced the nightmares again. Bird had taken off his belt striking him alongside his head with his buckle. He was looking at the face of the Devil.
5. Cynthia spend all the next
day begging Louie to go back to hear Billy Graham one more time. All day.
Finally he gave in. That night in the tent, Billy talked about
suffering, why is it that good people suffer?
He began his answer by pointing to the stars. “When I look at the stars in this California
sky, I see the footprints of God. I
think to myself, that God, my Father, has hung them there and holds them there
with the omnipotent power of his hand.
Even though he runs the whole universe, he is not too busy to count the
hairs on my head or to see the sparrow when it falls because God is interested
in me.”
Billy went on talking of the miracle and intangible blessings that we all experience in our lives. He said, “If you suffer, he will give the strength to go forward.”
Billy went on talking of the miracle and intangible blessings that we all experience in our lives. He said, “If you suffer, he will give the strength to go forward.”
a.
Louie found himself thinking of all the unexplained things that had
sustained him through those three years that could only be explained in the
impossible was possible. But he couldn’t
accept it. Billy said, “All he requires
of you is faith.”
b.
Louie bolted for the exit. As he
got to the end of the row, everything around him disappeared. In his mind, he was back in the raft, in the
middle of the ocean, endless ocean with his buddy Phil curled up beside
him. Louie was dying of thirst. His lips were parched. Then he remembered a promise he had made in
the form of a prayer. A prayer and a
promise he had forced out of his mind until that moment. He had told God, “If you will save me, I will
serve you forever.” If you save me, I
will serve you forever.
c.
He was at the end of the row, but instead of turning left to the exit,
he turned right and went forward to the call that God was making through Billy
Graham. Billy said, “This is it. God has spoken to you.”
6. When Louie got home that
night, he went to the liquor cabinet, picked up all the bottles and poured him
down the sink. He took his cigarettes
and dumped them in the garbage. That
night Louie slept. He awoke in the
morning cleansed. Bird had not entered
his dreams that night and he never would again.
7. That day, Louie dug out a
Bible and went to the park and sat reading it.
Softly he wept. Louie Zamperini
was a new creation in Christ Jesus. A
new creation. As a new creation, he
would never again have the feeling of revenge of retribution. They had left him forever. “But I say to you, love your enemies, pray
for those who persecute you.” It was
1949. From that day forward, that verse
would define his life.
8. In 1950, he returned to
Japan and went to the prison where all of the camp guards were imprisoned, 850
of them. He stood before them and
forgave them. Then he asked his guide if
he could see those from the three camps where he had been imprisoned, those who
had guarded him. He forgave them. Each one of them. Each one of them individually. “Forgive one another, as God is Christ has
forgiven you. So you must also forgive.” Only “The Bird” wasn’t there. No one knew where he was. Some thought he was dead.
9. In 1954, Louie opened a camp
for Juvenile boys, Victory Boys Camp. He
had scraped every dollar together that he could and built most of the camp
himself. That camp became his life’s
work. He showed the boys his love of the
outdoors, he opened up life for them, showed what they could become. Of course, too, he added a mild dose of
Christianity. He also managed the senior
center at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, and of course traveled
telling his story and the Good News of Jesus Christ.
a.
He was never able to race again.
One of his ankles had been badly injured during his internment. But he carried the torch in five different Olympic
Games, the last when he was 80 years old.
The Olympics were in Nagano Japan and the torch route when right by the
last prison camp Naoetsu in which Louis was imprisoned. Louie carried the torch past the camp
joyfully.
b.
CBS who was doing the television coverage and a special on Louie
Zamperini had found “The Bird” and interviewed him, unrepentant until that
day. They asked if he would meet with
Louie. He refused. Louie had written him a letter of
forgiveness, the closing saying, “I forgive you, and would also hope that you
would now become a Christian.”
c.
Louie passed away this past July 2nd at the age of 97 in the
midst of the making of the movie.
D. CLOSE
1. This week we pause to
celebrate Veteran’s Day. The government
website tells us “It’s a celebration to honor America’s veterans for their
patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and to sacrifice for the
common good.”
2. No story tells us of the
sacrifice and service like this one. I
for one am going to see the movie during the holiday season.
3. But the rest of the story
tells us so much more:
a.
God can take our brokenness and make of us new creations. Of that the story assures us.
b.
God can take our bitterness and anger and hatred seemingly justified by
man’s inhumanity to man. He can take
that away and replace it with love of enemies.
“Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.”
c.
God can take the need for revenge and retribution and replace it with
forgiveness. “Forgive one another as God
in Christ has forgiven you so you must also forgive.”
d.
And in so doing, God can place joy and hope in our lives that will
carry us the rest of our days.
4. As we remember our veterans
this week, let us remember the God of all veterans and all peoples
everywhere. God the giver of faith. The giver of hope. The giver of forgiveness. The giver of love. Amen.
