This sermon was presented at Resurrection on Sunday, May 29, 2011, by
Pastor Jim Kniseley.
It is based on the general theme of Memorial Day.
Children’s Message
What two flags do you see today in
church? Yes, the American Flag and the
Christian Flag. Notice the colors in
both flags: red, white and blue. Let me
tell you the story of how we got the Christian Flag that is found in many
churches today in America….The superintendent of a Sunday School,
Charles Overton, was forced to come up with a lesson on the spur of a moment
when the scheduled speaker did not arrive.
He looked at the American flag and had an inspiration. He asked the students to think about what a
flag for Christianity would look like.
Here is what Mr. Overton and his students came up with…
The most conspicuous symbol on the
flag is the cross. The red
color represents the blood of Jesus.
It reminds us of how Jesus died to take away our sins. The white
is the color of forgiveness and purity. It reminds us that someday in heaven, the
Bible says, people will be wearing robes that are
“white as now.” The blue color represents faithfulness,
truth, and sincerity.
Today I give each of you a small American flag to help us remember
that we live in a special country and it remains such a good country because of
people who were willing to give their very lives in defending their country….
STONEWALL
JACKSON AND TUCKER LACY
148 years ago this
month something took place in our church’s front yard that is most memorable,
the Battle of Chancellorsville. Every
day I pass by the intersection of Old Plank Road and McClaws
Drive where a marker tells of the late night meeting between Robert E. Lee and
Stonewall Jackson, where they were hatching the daring plan to do a flank march
around the Union Army and attack. It
turned out well for the Confederates and they were victorious in battle. We also know about the tragic wounding of
Jackson by his own men that night, the need to amputate his arm, his 28 mile
ride in a horse-drawn ambulance to Guinea Station, and his death several days
later.
What many of us may
not know well is the sincere Christian faith of Stonewall Jackson. He daily read his Bible, he prayed fervently
every day. His desire to provide
spiritual direction for himself and his Second Corps led him to select Rev.
Tucker Lacy as his chief of chaplains.
Beverly Tucker Lacy
was the pastor of Fredericksburg Presbyterian Church, the one on Princess Anne
Street, cattycorner from St. George’s Episcopal Church. He and his family knew about war. During the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862,
they had to take refuge in a basement of a house near the church. His family’s
inherited home was Chatham, and it was taken over as the Union
Headquarters. In March, 1863, Lacy officially
became the head chaplain for the Second Corps.
On Sunday, April 23,
1863, Rev. Lacy led a service of worship for about 1,000 officers, including
Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
It was at this service that Rev. Lacy baptized baby Julia Jackson. She was just 5 months old and her father had
seen her for the first time only days before this. Rev. Lacy’s sermon
was on the rich man and Lazarus, contrasting this world and the next. It was the last sermon General Jackson ever
heard, for he was wounded just 6 days later.
We know so much about
Stonewall Jackson’s last days and hours because of what Rev. Lacy
recorded. Jackson told Lacy that when he
was lying wounded on the field and when he was being carried in the ambulance,
“I gave myself up into the hands of the Heavenly Father without a fear…It has
been a precious experience to me, that I was brought face to face with death,
and found all was well.” Tucker was kept
very busy ministering not only to Stonewall Jackson and Anna, but also to the
many folks who kept watch outside the building at Guinea Station.
It is Rev. Lacy, among
others, who relayed so eloquently what Stonewall Jackson’s last words
were. We Christians know what Jackson
meant more than those who think only in secular terms. It was Sunday, May 10. With a smile and a look of contentment on his
face, just before he died, he clearly said, “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of those trees.”
TODD SCHLUND
AND KURT WOHLER
In preparation for
this sermon, I pulled out my sermon from Memorial Day 2003. I’m glad I did because we can look back now
with relief and gratitude because two of our own who were serving overseas in
the Armed Forces are safely home, enjoying the freedoms they served to defend,
and are at worship with today. I’m
speaking of Todd Schlund and Kurt Wohler.
It was on Memorial
Weekend in 2002 that Todd Schlund and his family
organized our first ever Flag Display.
Little did we
know that in 2003 Todd would not be able to help because he was to leave on
January 6 to serve in the War in Iraq.
Lt. Colonel Todd Schlund served in the Marine
Corps and was an aviator, flying Harriers.
His carrier was the U.S.S. Bataan.
Todd was able to
e-mail Pastor Carol and me on occasion.
Here is part of an e-mail we received.
I wanted to take a moment to
thank all of you for your love, prayers, and support. You will never realize what your kind words,
thoughts and deeds meant to us. It
further strengthened our resolve and continued to affirm that ours was a just
cause…I would ask that you remember those that are not making the trip home
with us. They were someone’s brother,
father, son, mother, daughter, sister, friend – people just like you and me
–ordinary Americans performing extraordinary acts. They are the true heroes, having paid the
ultimate sacrifice in defense of freedom…
We often focus so much
on those who go to serve in the military that we overlook the sacrifice that is
made by their families. I asked Jody
what the hardest part of Todd’s being overseas it. Her answer, “Not having him
here.” (This remembrance touches
me.) “ He could not be present for Courtney’s
graduation from preschool last week or Tony’s prom
last night or the June 14 graduation from high school for Lynsey
and Ashlee.”
Then I was able to
share some good news: Todd was enroute and would arrive in Norfolk on June 22!
Then
about Kurt Wohler. Shannon was so thankful that Kurt wasn’t
serving at the front in Iraq. By all
odds he should have been serving there as a field doctor. He was a Major in the army reserves and
living a normal life as an anesthesiologist at Mary Washington Hospital. Then he was called up to active duty and sent
to Landstuhl, Germany, near Ramstein
Air Base. At that point he hadn’t
related any stories
because of confidentiality.
We do know that wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan eventually
were sent to his hospital, and when they were sufficiently recovered, were sent
on to the United States. Shannon in May
2003 hoped that Kurt would be coming home by July.
Shannon, like Jody,
had to carry on with home life with an absent partner. Lucas and Nick were her priority, and she
depended on family and friends to be her support group.
It gives me
perspective on all this to think that the Schlund and
Wohler preschoolers of 2003 are now the teenagers of today. Lucas was confirmed last year, Nick will be
confirmed this year, and Courtney will be confirmed next year.
Today we want to
commend both of these families for their support for husbands and fathers, but
also for their regular, weekly attendance at worship, during the time spouses
were away, and ever since their return.
We thank Jody and Shannon for their serving through the years as
coordinators of our Flag Display.
ABRAHAM
LINCOLN’S FAITH
For this last remembrance, I am
indebted to Dr. D. James Kennedy and his book What If the Bible Had Not Been
Written?”
Was Abraham Lincoln a Christian or
not? He knew his Bible and could quote
it well. But he does not seem to have
taken much stock in public
worship or affiliating with a church or being baptized. That is until the last days of his life, in
the mist of the dark days of the Civil War.
An intimate friend of Lincoln’s,
Joshua Fry Speed, remarked that Lincoln had been a skeptic as a young, but in
the summer of 1864, Speed noticed a change in Lincoln:
As I entered the room, near night, he
was sitting near a window, intently reading the Bible. Approaching him I said, “I am glad to see you
so profitably engaged.” “Yes,” said he,
“I am profitably engaged.” “Well,” said
I, “if you have recovered from your skepticism, I am sorry to say that I have
not.” Looking me earnestly in the face,
and placing his hand upon my shoulder, he said, “You are wrong, Speed; take all
of this book upon reason that you can and the balance on faith, and you will
live and die a happier and better man.”
Lincoln was to live a year and a half
after that day. He was reelected
president and his second inaugural speed is noted for its awareness that his
future and the future of the nation are entirely in God’s hands. The last bill that Lincoln signed into law
was the bill that mandated that the words “In God We Trust” should henceforth
appear on all of our coins.
The Lincolns attended the play at
Ford’s Theater on that fateful night…Do you know what President and Mrs.
Lincoln were talking earlier in the day?
He told Mary that he would like to travel to the Near East with her to
see the area where Jesus had lived. “We
could go to Bethlehem where He was born.
We could visit Bethany. We could
follow in those hallowed footsteps.”
John Wilkes Booth made sure that
Lincoln would not get his heart’s desire.
Did you know that Abraham Lincoln had written to the New York Avenue
Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, explaining that he had come now to a
faith in the Savior and requested to make a public profession that Easter
Sunday – but on Good Friday he died.
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton,
looking down at the body lying at an angle across the bed in a room across the street
from Ford’s Theater, said, “There lies
the most perfect ruler of men that the world has ever seen…Now he belongs to
the ages.”
And we remember the words of
scripture: “No greater love can be shown
than this, that one is willing to lay down his life
for another.”
Amen.