Preparing for Easter: Humility & Glory

Today’s Reading: Matthew 27:11-31 

The crowd of wearied downtrodden men gathered behind the dusty fence, brimming over with all the sorrow, shock and indignation a human soul could hold. They had just watched their friend and comrade of these past years endure the unendurable for a crime he did not commit, the innocent perishing for the guilty. Pierced through the hands and feet with the heavy railroad spikes they knew as instruments of their own torture, their friend was lifted on the heavy cross for all to see. Abject power forcing its cruel will on the powerless, a stern warning that utter obedience was all that would be tolerated and breaching this merciless and capricious law meant severe punishment or death. 

The year was 1945, and the place was the Kwai valley in Burma, made famous by the classic movie Bridge Over the River Kwai. This one is just one of the thousands of terrible stories that could be told by prisoners of those awful camps. 

These prisoners were part of the British Expeditionary Forces in the Far East. As the Imperial Japanese Army rolled mercilessly through the East, these men were captured, tortured, starved, and forced into such brutal slave labor as the world has rarely seen. 80,000 of these strong young men would eventually die of starvation, disease or abuses. 

They were charged to build a railway through the Burmese Jungle, through swamps and cruel river valleys to prepare a way for the Japanese invasion of India. Naked except for a loincloth, stung by insects, bitten by malaria causing mosquitos, feet and hands bleeding from the brutal work under the 120-degree sun nearly 400 of these once healthy battle-hardened soldiers would die for each mile of this terrible passageway of death. 

But in the midst of the utter hell, 24-year-old Captain Ernest Gordon was witnessing a revelation of a type of substitutionary atonement that he had been taught of, but now witnessed. 

He was watching his friend and mentor, Dusty Miller, pay the ultimate price to save one of his friends.  Dusty was a farmer in his previous life, but called into the service of his nation when the wheels of global war began to turn. Dusty’s path through the war ultimately led him into captivity in the prison camps of Burma. Gordon had met him when he was lying sick in the death ward of the camp, a place where many went in, but few came out. 

Dusty came to visit his dying comrades there. Though he didn’t know Gordon personally, he fed him from some of his own starvation rations, cleaned his putrid ulcers, and massaged his atrophied muscles to help the blood flow and maybe bring life to his dying body. Or at least comfort and love for the journey to the other side. 

Miraculously, Gordon somehow pulled through. And in a camp, where cruelty was law and one only looked out for his own interests, he wanted to know why this man sacrificed himself for someone he didn’t even know. Gordon eventually came to hear about Dusty’s faith, and about the God Who not only knew him, but loved him and wanted a relationship with him. 

But on that scalding torturous afternoon, Gordon was watching his friend die, and not for his own indiscretion. One of his fellow soldiers had tried to escape and was caught. He was brought before all the men and severely beaten. The sentence was death. They all watched as he was forced to bow his head before the executioner as the curved steel blade glistened above the soldier’s head. At that moment the unthinkable happened. Dusty calmly walked forward and whispered in the commander's ear. Incredulously, he shouted a stop to the execution to the relief of all the men. But then, they ripped the clothes off the calm interceder, and drug him to a railroad tie. There they watched him be crucified in the manner of his Lord. 

Dusty gave His life to pay the price for the guilt of another. He lived the way of the cross, the sacrifice of one for another. 

This week, we remember the ultimate sacrifice of our Redeemer. Like the murderer Barabbas, we stand in dismay that one, who was righteous and undeserving took our penalty, our transgression, our sin upon Him. The Blessed One, for the unholy, profane, and utterly deserving ones. It is ironic at very least, that Barabbas means son of the Father. (His full name was Jesus Barabbas, Jesus Son of the Father.) It is only because of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father, that holy justice could be meted out, and that like Dusty Miller, a life was taken that a life might be gained. Let’s remember our redemption this Holy week and the sacrifice of our savior, Jesus Christ, the one and only Son of the Father. 

Information in the blog was from the book Through the Valley of the Kwai by Ernest Gordon.

Amazon Link - https://www.amazon.com/Through-Valley-Kwai-Ernest-Gordon/dp/1579100368