The Expendables

John 11: 47-52

In 1867 some sensitive women of Columbus, Mississippi, decorated not only the graves
of their own dead who had given their lives in the great Civil War, which it just ended,
but also the graves of Northern soldiers who were buried there.
This noble deed inspired others to do the same, and the annual custom eventually
became our nationwide Memorial Day.

  • It has become a beautiful day of tribute, celebrated with music, praise, speeches,
        and the decorating of the graves of those who have died in the wars of our nation.
  • It has become an effective way of helping us remember those who have made it possible
        for us to be where we are and have what we have today -- those who have paid
        the supreme sacrifice -- those who are expendable.

    The Natural Experience of Man

    Humanity can almost be said to be divided into two classes: those who live the full, rich life,
    and those who die to make the full life possible for others.
    It remains to this day one of our most tragic facts of reality that some of us must be
    sacrificed for the rest of us.

    Memorial Day vividly reminds us of this historic principle.
    None of us doubts for a moment that we are citizens of the greatest republic in the history
    of man because so many gave their lives to make it possible.
    Hundreds of thousands of America's young men have died during America's wars.
    In Saratoga and Yorktown, in Flanders Field and Gettysburg, in Normandy and Pearl Harbor,
    in Korea and Vietnam, are buried in Arlington Cemetery and similar gardens around the world,
    the silent graves of more than a half-million Americans are eloquent testimony
    that everything costs and freedom costs most of all.

    Others beside the military have given their lives for our land, our liberty, and our health. Every age and every area of life has had its "expendables," people who had
    to lose that others may gain.
    But, are they so expendable?
    Could we have done without them?
    Wasn't their very act of sacrifice more successful and more essential than all our little
    acts of selfish achievement?

    The Supreme Example of Jesus

    In our text Jesus was being discussed by the chief priests and Pharisees who were almost
    panicky because Jesus just kept on working miracles. (Verse 47)
    They were afraid that the Jewish people were going to turn en masse to Jesus
    as Messiah and King.
    This, they knew, would appear as a political revolution to Rome and cause the
    destruction of Israel. (Verse 48)

    Caiaphas, the high priest, rebuked them for their ignorance in practical affairs such as this.
    (Verse 49)
    He declared blatantly and callously "that it is expedient for us, that one man
    should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not
    ." (Verse 50)
    Caiaphas was speaking consciously of the political problem Jesus presented.
    Yet the words which he spoke were strangely not just related to his conscious purpose,
    nor did they even come from him in the first place ("And this he spake not of himself.").
    Even though Caiaphas was a disreputable and weak puppet priest, he still was Israel's
    spiritual leader, and God's spirit was prophesying through his lips the glorious fact
    of Christ's vicarious death on the cross for the sins of the world. (Vs. 51-52)

    Jesus is history's supreme example of an "expendable."
  • He died in order that we could live.
  • He proved that a perfect life could be lived in an imperfect world.
  • He revealed how far God would go to redeem lost humanity.
  • He showed that God would forgive the darkest sins of men.
    Jesus became the expendable one.
    It has always seemed so.
    Those who have the most to live for are often the quickest to give up their lives.
    The most alert, sensitive, talented, and promising are usually the first to volunteer for front line duty.

    John Wesley, a classical scholar and gifted with a virile mind, gave himself fully to God
    and consecrated all his powers to God's service.
    Possessed of a scholar's love for books, yet he spent most of his life in the saddle
    and in the active duties of a most strenuous life.
    With a passionate love for art, especially for music and architecture, he turned away from
    their charms to blow the Gospel trumpet with all his might.

    With a more than an ordinary longing for the sweets and comforts of human love, he rose
    above disappointments which would have crushed most men, forgot his "only-bleeding heart"
    (his own expression), and gave himself unreservedly to the work of binding up the brokenhearted.
    Visiting the beautiful grounds of an English nobleman, he said, "I, too, have a desire
    for these things; but there is another world
    ."

    The High Calling of Christianity

    The Christian message and meaning has been pitifully watered down.
    The call of Christianity means no more to many than a call to a higher system of ethics,
    a call to higher morality, or a call to organized religious activity.
    Jesus never issued such calls.
    The call of the Master was clearly a call from and to Calvary: "If any man will come
    after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me
    ."
    (Matt. 16: 24)
    Those early disciples knew that when a man decided to "take up his cross,"
    he was not simply bearing a burden, he was dying for a cause.

    All of the apostles were insulted by the enemies of their Master.
    They were called to seal their doctrines with their blood and nobly did they bear the trial. For almost the first 300 years, Christianity was forbidden.
  • Its adherents were publicly whipped, dragged by their heels through the streets
        until their brains ran out.
  • Their limbs were torn off, their ears and noses were cut off, and their eyes were dug out
        with sharp sticks or burned out with hot irons.
  • Sharp knives were run under their fingernails.
  • Melted lead was poured over their bodies.
  • They were drowned, beheaded, crucified, ground between stones, torn by wild beasts,
        smothered in lime kilns, scrapped to death by sharp shells, and killed almost daily.
    So, do not be indifferent to this thing called Christianity.
    It was created for us by the blood of Christ and preserved for us by the blood of martyrs.

    A redeeming Christ has given us a future filled with hope.
    So do not take lightly our Christianity, which cost the Son of God His life, and millions
    of His followers their lives.
  • While some are frantically grabbing for the last straw, others are giving up their life rafts.
  • While some are demanding their rights and destroying those who endanger their position
        or pleasure, others are magnanimously forfeiting all the rights and privileges
        that keep someone else from being happy.

    All of us are not called upon to die heroically or sacrificially.
    We should never be ashamed that we are alive unless it has needlessly cost the life of another.
    We ought to dedicate our lives to the highest and noblest dreams, and determine to live
    every second to the fullest.
    After all, that is what they -- all of them, from the soldiers to the Saviour -- would want us
    to do with the life and freedom that they have given us.

    Some of us may be called on to sacrifice our pride, our pleasure, our position, our prosperity,
    perhaps even our lives.
    If we are so called, let us consider ourselves especially blessed that God has seen something
    in us worthy of being used as His expendables.

    Some years ago, when the ship, the Empress of Ireland, went down with 130 Salvation Army
    officers on board, 109 officers were drowned, and not one body that was picked up
    had on a life preserver.
    The few survivors told how the Salvation Army officers, realizing that there were not
    enough life preservers for all, took off their lifejackets and strapped them on everyone,
    even upon strongmen, saying, "I can die better then you can"; and from
    the deck of that sinking ship flung their battle cry around the world -- "Others!"

    Sermon by Dr. Harold L. White


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