II Timothy 2:1-13

This is a big weekend.  All around the nation, it is a holiday… Memorial Day… the weekend that serves as the unofficial kickoff for the summer.  Of course, Memorial Day means much more than that, particularly to families who have lost loved ones to the wars our nation has waged.  Tomorrow will be a day for memories.

But memories do not have to be limited to tomorrow.  I would propose TODAY as a Memorial Day for us… a visit to ANOTHER cemetery… that hallowed ground that contains the mortal remains of loyal soldiers who have given their lives for an even greater good than freedom and democracy… those who have given their lives in defense of the Christian faith – as Paul would describe them, “good soldiers of Jesus Christ.”  They too need to be called to mind so that we might remember with gratitude the glorious heritage that we share.

. . . Over here is an interesting headstone of an Englishman named John Wycliffe, the man who came to be called “the Morningstar of the Reformation.”  Wycliffe was born in Yorkshire, England sometime around 1324.  Apparently he came from a cultured family.  He entered college at Oxford and eventually became a part of its faculty.  He was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1361 and soon was appointed as one of the King’s chaplains.  So far, a relatively uneventful existence.

But, as time went along, Wycliffe became offended at the wealth and power of the established church hierarchy and preached against it.  He criticized those who lived their lives cloistered in monasteries, as he said “choosing their own contemplation and rest while suffering other men to go to hell.”  In addition, he was concerned that the Latin Bible which was used by the church had no meaning for the common people, and so began the first English translation of the entire Old and New Testaments that had NOT been authorized by the church.

Even though Wycliffe was not martyred for the faith, he had most certainly given his life to it… the dedication expected of a loyal soldier.  His efforts greatly influenced those who came in the two centuries after him, those who would harvest the seeds of reformation which he had planted.  To his undying credit, he was insistent that good soldiers have their orders written in a language they could understand, and thus today, ALL Christians, no matter what their church affiliation, support that effort.  That “Morningstar of the Reformation” has a LIVING epitaph in the name of an evangelistic outreach, the Wycliffe Bible Translators.  Isn’t it wonderful that we hear the Gospel in our own language?  For that, we can thank John Wycliffe.

Over here is another headstone….  According to his tombstone, he was born in 1897 and died in 1944.  His name is Rev. Joo Ki-Chul.  He was a Korean pastor who suffered martyrdom because of his opposition to Japanese demands that all Koreans, including all Christians, pay reverence at Shinto shrines.  The demand was one of many requirements imposed by Japan during its occupation of Korea (1905 – 45) to instill obedience and supplant Korean cultural ways with those of the Japanese.  My parents, for example, were taught in Japanese at school and they even had to change their names in Japanese.

Joo lived in this time of bitter persecution for the church.

In 1937, when Koreans were severely oppressed and persecuted, Joo became the pastor of the Sanjunghyun church in Pyongyang.  This is the mother church of the Korean Presbyterian Chruch.  As you know, Pyongyang is the capital of North Korea, now.  But, this is before the division of Korean peninsula in 1945.  Pyongyang was known as Jerusalem in Asia, because it was a center of an explosive Christian revival movement in Korea at that time.  And Joo was one of the Christian leaders.  In 1938, the Japanese government pushed ahead with measures to suppress Christian churches and Christian schools.

Most of the Korean church leaders gave in to the fierce oppression by the Japanese. But Joo stood up against and preached a sermon, titled “Determination for Death,” rebuking the unfair oppression of annihilating the Christian faith of Koreans who refused to bow before false idols.

He was arrested by the Japanese police and was severely tortured and urged to renounce his faith; “Deny Christ.”  His response was “I will die for my Lord.”  He was released in several months.  But, he was imprisoned several more times prior to his death, because he continued to lead movements against visiting war shrines.  In all, he served more than five years in prison; the beatings and torture he received left him ill and very weak, and he died in a prison.

Joo was one of those valiant defenders of the church who refused to make compromise even if his very life depended on it.  A soldier of the cross who had made the supreme sacrifice in defense of his Lord.

. . . Over here is one more grave, a relatively new one.  Actually, it is not a grave at all… just a marker.  There is nothing buried beneath it.  The inscription on it is hardly blurred at all by the passage of time – after all, it was carved just over sixty years ago.  It belongs to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

He was born into a well-to-do German family in Breslau in 1906.  He became interested in the ministry as a vocation as a boy, making the decision to become a pastor at the age of 14.  He studied at several universities and received his theological degree at age 21.  While he was serving churches, he completed his Doctor of Theology degree in 1927.

Needless to say, all was not roses in the Germany of the young Bonhoeffer: there was considerable social distress as a result of economic conditions; there was enough political unrest to allow Hitler to come to power.  Bonhoeffer realized early on the dangers that the Nazis posed and publically denounced them.

In 1939, as a well-known theologian, he was invited to give a series of lectures here in America and, for his own safety, he was encouraged to remain in the United States by friends both here and in his homeland.  But in a letter to Reinhold Niebuhr who was one of the leading theologians of the last century, he wrote, “I have come to the conclusion that I have made a mistake in coming to America.  I must live through this period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany.  I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.”   So Bonhoeffer went back.

Within a year, he was prohibited from preaching.  The following year, he was prohibited from publishing.  He became active in the resistance movement and was arrested in April, 1943.  Like the apostle Paul, Bonhoeffer did some of his most memorable work from prison, calling attention in his letters and papers to the necessity for a “worldly Christianity,” the kind of faith that is willing to get involved in the great struggles of humanity.  His writings on Christianity’s role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship has been described as a modern classic.  Bonhoeffer had been particularly influenced by the Sermon on the Mount, and in his book he wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

Bonhoeffer was to heed that summons.  On April 9, 1945, in the concentration camp at Flossenburg, just a few days before it was liberated by the Allies, he was tried for treason and hanged.  His body was burned and his ashes spread to the winds.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, just 39 years old, a soldier of the cross who was willing to give up his life for the Master who gave his OWN life for us all.

Wycliffe, Joo Ki-Chul, Bonhoeffer, and many more… men and women who were and are willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of their Savior, whose lives fairly DEMAND a Christian Memorial Day to celebrate their accomplishments, whom we do well to remember for the challenge they present to us.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, how will YOU be remembered on Christian Memorial Days in years to come?  What kind of Christian soldier will people think of when they think of you?  Will it be one like Wycliffe… willing to take positions that might be unpopular?  … one who took seriously the Lord’s Great Commission to spread the Gospel everywhere?  Or will you be remembered like Joo Ki-Chul… fearless in your confession of faith?  Will you be remembered as Bonhoeffer… one who was even willing to “come and die?”

Yes, this is a big weekend for America as we unofficially celebrate the beginning of summer and especially as we remember our heroes who have given their all in defense of the nation.  May God grant that this be an even BIGGER weekend for us as we take the challenges of the great defenders of the faith and use them to rededicate ourselves as faithful soldiers of the Kingdom.  Amen!