Den Oever is a small town
right on the tip of
60 or more years ago, in 1945, this was a very heavily defended area.
Huge fortifications werebuilt
then, which are still standing. Gun emplacements, control rooms, sleeping
quarters, ammunition stores, all inside
a massive fortress of solid concrete, three feet thick, built by the Dutch to protect
the southern end of the dijk, and then taken over by the German Army.
Until recently, you could
still wander around inside this fortress – stepping through its steel doors,
down its empty passageways, climbing finally up to look out at the
Now it is a huge, empty
fortress, deserted, its doors hanging open,
empty
since that day in spring 1945 when the German troops who had occupied the
fortress crowded into a convoy of lorries and drove away across the dijk,
the
enemy had gone, leaving an empty fortress,
Its
exactly that experience that the prophet Isaiah describes in chapter 25.
He speaks of an enemy army
that marched away never to return,
leaving
their huge, empty fortresses, deserted, doors hanging open.
Isaiah declares: through the Lord’s mercy and kindness, the
fortified towns of the enemy are now in ruins, and the foreign fortresses are
no longer a threat.
The prophet sings a hymn of
praise to the Lord in praise for what He, the Lord, has done. In the name of
the thankful people of
As we gather this morning, we
in turn share that experience
that thanksgiving
here this morning.
This morning we give thanks
for victory, over sixty years ago now, in 1945.
For as the years have unfolded
since then, it be seen ever more clearly that this was truly a war in the name
of freedom. A war fought against ruthless and evil power which brought about the
defeat of the
deliberate plan of the Nazis to subjugate other nations, and then to eliminate
them from the face of the earth.
So it is today, that we
remember and give thanks for victory in the titanic struggle against that demonic
vision, and those terrible plans.
When the Lord silenced the
uproar of the foreign armies,
and the
triumph song of enemies was stilled.
We pause here for a moment this morning, to remind ourselves of God’s great power, declared in the Bible. This is the great theme of the prophet Isaiah:
Praise for God’s faithfulness, praise to the God who has protected His
people.
Thanksgiving for the peace that God has brought to His people……….
Even in the darkest hours, the
most terrible days, He is Lord, and His is the victory. The nations, the
peoples, the powerful of the world are not a law to themselves. For Jesus
Christ is Lord, in the words of Colossians,
He is before all things, and
through Him, God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us
into the kingdom of the Son…..
That’s the first great ringing note, that Isaiah strikes.
God’s power, seen in the fall
of ruthless nations, God’s power over the turmoil of the world:
But there’s a second note,
alongside that of God’s power over the nations
and
its this:
the Lord’s care for His suffering people
the Lord’s love for His people in the worst of times, in all the suffering of His people.
Isaiah declares: the breath of
the ruthless is like a storm driving against a wall,
but ‘You O Lord, have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in distress, a shelter from the storm, a shade from the heat:
Here, Isaiah speaks, not of
the clash of warring armies, and the fall of empires, – but of God’s care for the least of
His people in those dreadful times. You
have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in distress, a shelter
from the storm, a shade from the heat:
Perhaps that strikes another
note for some of you here this morning, Thanksgiving:
that loved ones fought, lived through the darkest hours of war, through the most terrible of experiences but came home.
Or that you yourself lived
through the darkest hours of war, through those experiences but lived, and came home.
Its
that experience that the prophet is speaking about:
Lord, You have been a refuge, a refuge for the needy in distress, a shelter
from the storm,
Praise to the living God who
cares for us,
as
Jesus says: not a sparrow falls, but He knows.
Lord, You have been a refuge, a refuge for the needy in distress, a
shelter from the storm….. Now….the great thrust of the New Testament is
that God has acted to bring this about. The New Testament speaks of the victory
of God over His enemies, of the victory of Jesus Christ at the cross. In the
spiritual realm, God has defeated sin, through the sending of His Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ, who has in Himself defeated the last enemy - death - for us.
God has come, not in destructive power, but in weakness, to share our life, in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ and through that lowliness has defeated sin - to give us life. To establish a kingdom that is not like the kingdoms, the great powers of the earth, the warring, jealous, greedy powers. A kingdom of peace.
Paul says about being part of
this kingdom, being a sign of this kingdom: A kingdom where there is no bitterness,
rage and anger, as Paul says, where we are called to be kind and compassionate to one another,
forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave us. Living a life of love,
just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us – as a fragrant offering and
sacrifice to God.
AMEN.