Charge the lines...

You remember the name Florence Nightingale, don’t you? The year was 1854 and the war was the Crimean War. The players? For one, Russia wanted control of the Dardanelles. Secondly, Turkey resisted with France and Britain joining her. Britain would allow no one to threaten her sea trade, especially through the Dardanelles. There was war for two years, and Florence led the charge with nurses, tending the wounded and dying.

There was another charge too. Alfred Lord Tennyson was his name. A modern war correspondent of sorts Tennyson writes these opening lines, “Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!’ he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.” Yes, these are the opening lines to the famed, “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”

I awoke this morning to the cadence of this poem…’Forward, the Light Brigade!” And then out of my inner being I begin to hear the words from Psalms 18:34, “He teacheth my hands to war,…” More on this in just a minute, but first—listen to these words: “O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! Heart! Heart! Heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.”

Do you remember the lyrical words? You should. They are the words of Walt Whitman. He penned these words, being moved by the death of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was truly a Captain par excellence. There seemed to be a lot of senseless death in the mid 1800s in America’s war of brother against brother and in Russia’s Ukraine.

For now, back to my opening charge. Tennyson penned his immortal lines, being moved by little more than 600 light cavalry men who moved across an open terrain to a suicidal fate. The canons belched flack and tainted the air overhead with black-powder smoke, but the light brigade kept moving forward…”Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.” What would cause brave boys—barely men—to keep moving forward without breaking ranks in the face of gruesome death? Would it be discipline? Would it be for the glory of battle? What could it be?

Lord, teach my hands to war! No, not conventional warfare. I hate killing. Lord, teach me how to overcome the enemies of the Cross. Yes, teach me to stand with bravery, with boldness, with intestinal fortitude, with discipline, with HONOR against the forces of evil this day.

Lord teach my hands to war. Lord when my hands are slack due to weariness—teach them to war, lifted up. Lord when my hands refrain from helping the widows and orphans—teach my hands to touch them again with your touch. Lord when my hands lie dormant from prayer less hours—teach me to fold them in prayer.

Rejoice, O my soul! The light brigade is the hand lifted up to praise you and to help my fellowman. The light brigade is the trained hand, the prayer hands, for Calvary’s sake. Teach me Lord to charge the lines of darkness with the power of light. Teach me to stand against the wrongs and injustice of evil for the good of my neighbor. Teach me Lord through poets of old to take heart and hold the line like the soldiers and Captains before me.

“My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’s safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead. Walt Whitman

Keep the faith captains. Stay the line until the enemy falls. Justice is prevailing in Christ Jesus!

Pastor T. dash