What Survives?

I just watched a news story about a reunion.  Sid Shafner, 94 years old, is the last surviving member of his World War II infantry company.  In 1945 his company was among U.S. troops who liberated 30,000 men, women and children from the Dachau death camp.  In Israel this week, Shafner was reunited with 90-year-old Marcel Levi, who was among those liberated, and who even remained for a while with Shafner's company as a cook. 

This week they met again on an Israeli Air Force base, joined by children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, for a time of celebration and remembering.  Theirs is a story of survival and blessings, of friendship forged, and families flourishing.  On that Air Force base, history and hope spent some time together.

Currents flow, two men meet, and in them and through them life is snatched from death and darkness extinguished by light.  And the testimony to the victory is generations. 

The Spirit of God moves through time, the divine breath in the souls of humans.  Evil is real, the most hideous of human designs inflicting real and horrible harm.  But love and life persist, and mercy moves through our mottled world like a divine virus.  No evil can overcome God's will for humanity.

And what is that will of God?  Do you want to see it in a snapshot?  Look at Levi and Shafner and their families.  The Spirit moves; life wins.

And would you like a glimpse of the whole human story written in broad strokes-the worst of evil and the goodness of God?  Look to the cross.  It is hatred and love; it is death and its end.  And it is a way of love and life that even now dares to take on evil.

In Christ,
Rev. Mark Westmoreland

P.S.  Please continue to pray for the work of our United Methodist General Conference.

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