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Quite likely many of you have seen the movie THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI but this part of the story was not included in the film version It might well be called the miracle on the River Kwai and it was part the real life story.
This all took place in the south Pacific during World War II. The Japanese forced their Scottish prisoners to labor night and day building a jungle railroad bridge. As the bridge grew, the bodies of the Scottish soldiers shrank until they were nothing but skin and bones. One day, the Japanese Commandant began to scream and threatened to kill them one by one until the missing shovel was returned.
No one budged and the Japanese commandant pulled out his gun. It was obvious he was going to carry out his threat.
At that moment one man stepped forward and confessed. And the Commandant promptly beat him to death with a shovel.
When it was over, the survivors picked up the bloody corpse of their fellow prisoner and carried him with them to the second tool check. But this time, no shovel was missing. Indeed, no shovel had ever been missing. There had been a miscount at the first check point.
The word spread like wildfire. An innocent man had willingly given his life to save the others.
The incident had a profound effect. The prisoners began to treat each other like brothers.
When the victorious Allies swept in, the Scottish survivors lined up in front of their former captors and instead of attacking them, insisted that there would be, “No more hatred. No more killing. Now what we ALL need is forgiveness.”
They stood there clothed in their tattered grey uniforms; 25,000 survivors, many of them truly no more than boys. The Civil War, which had killed over 600,000 from both the north and south, was finally over. But the hate on both sides had not been conquered.
So when the victorious General dressed in blue turned to those defeated soldiers and said, “By the rules of war I can take your horses and you can have a long walk back home,” it was to be expected. But when he continued, “I’m not going to do that. You’ll be needing them at plowing time.” That was not expected.
No, it wasn’t a love feast. But it was a moment of light after so much darkness. A glimmer of compassion amid so much tragedy.
Once I had a vision. Well, as close to a vision as I imagine I will ever have. I saw a bearded man with tears dripping onto his seamless robe. And I saw a parade of men walking by: a timeless parade for some of the dates I saw read BC and some read AD. And there were thousands of these dates to accommodate the thousands of wars that had been fought.
The men were dressed in all manner of uniforms, in all manner of designs.
And some wore beards and some were clean shaven. And the colors of their skins were all the different shades God had created. But still they were all the same. People attempting to destroy other people.
A very sad parade of human behavior.
I thought of all the wars where it was not thousands against thousands, but only two; a husband and wife, a parent and child, two church members, an employer and an employee, two former friends now enemies. And I thought how all wars; large, medium and small, eventually come to an end, but how sometimes the hates continue.
Yet fortunately there are times when there is reconciliation. The special miracle times when hands put down swords and turn them into plowshares. And a tiny piece of earthly geography takes on a heavenly tinge because two or more human beings decide to live tall and sun crowned above the crowd.
THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN
“A book superior in style and content)
Quote from book below
Would it have made any difference if the man who was President of the United States . Is there always the danger that a Christian leader will still be arrogant, angry and more than willing to shape pruning hooks into spears?7 Unfortunately, yes. But not Abe. His words spell out clearly how he felt about solutions by the sword. “The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am. None who would do more to preserve it. ” 8
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