The Greatest Generation

A couple of months ago, because of unrest in the Middle East, I postponed my next trip to Israel until February. Two days after postponing, I was offered a unique opportunity to share daily spiritual devotions with a New Orleans Seminary “Greatest Generation” Trip while on a tour of WWII sites in Germany, Austria, France and England.

My trip took me through Hitler’s rise to power in Munich and Nuremberg to Dachau Concentration Camp, Hitler’s Eagles Nest, the beaches of Normandy, VE Day in Paris and Winston Churchill’s War Room. I couldn’t help but think, “Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have victims” and “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

We heard the despicable story of Hitler’s rise to power. With economic instability, national humiliation, printing money, hyperinflation, widespread unemployment and political weakness, Hitler exploited these issues with terror, control, manipulation, the cult of personality, propaganda, simplistic solutions, lies, charisma, promises to bring back their pride, racial politics, and appeal to nationalist and antisemitic extremism. Brilliant scientists, musicians and people didn’t just wake up one day and say, “Let’s build gas chambers!” It was chilling to hear the results of people believing the ghastly lies of Anti-God Marxist Philosophy that left millions of dead bodies strewn all over Europe in the last century.

After Normandy, my level of appreciation is off the charts as I think of what those young men accomplished in saving the world from the tyranny of the Nazis. If you forgot the story, you might remember movies like Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers or The Longest Day. On June 6, 1944, the “Allied forces launched the D-Day invasion on Normandy’s beaches. The D-Day beaches are a site of solemn pilgrimage, with numerous cemeteries and memorials honoring the fallen soldiers.” Our freedom came at great cost to those who were so sacrificial.

Walking about Dachau was surreal as we heard about and sensed the horrific suffering of the Jews and saints during the holocaust. The atrocities at Dachau were Evil, Evil, Evil. The average lifespan at a work camp was 3 months. Thirty Thousand were liberated at Dachau at the end of the war in a place that slept 6,000. Was there any hope at Dachau? Yes! At three o’clock daily a large bell reverberates across the courtyard. What is that sound? It is the three o’clock bell. There is a large bell that rings at three o’clock every day. Why three o’clock? Because Jesus died at three o’clock. Amid this painfully horrific place of the Holocaust, Christians wanted the world to know that Jesus suffered and died to purchase their victory on the cross. In the hellish places and times of suffering the bell sounds. It rings the message of victory. The bell tolls the sound of forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ.