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Stories of Courage

Numbers 13:1-2, 25-32; 14:1-2

February 15, 2003

Numbers 13

¹The LORD said to Moses, ²“Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites; from each of their ancestral tribes you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.”

The Report of the Spies

²⁵At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. ²⁶And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. ²⁸Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large; and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. ²⁹The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea, and along the Jordan.”

³⁰But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” ³¹Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we.” ³²So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size.

The People Rebel

Numbers 14

¹Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. ²And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron

The date is January 13, 1982.  As 28 year old Lenny Skutnik walks home from work, he nears the 14^th street bridge that spans the Potomac River, in Washington, DC.  Suddenly, he and dozens of others, many in their cars, sitting in rush hour traffic, look up to see an airplane, where it shouldn’t be, coming in fast and at only about twenty or thirty feet.  The huge Boeing 737, which was heading from the icy, cold, US Capital for Fort Lauderdale, Florida, had been so icy that the instruments the pilots use to see if they have enough power in the engines to take off, were not working properly and the plane left the runway without the necessary power to climb into the sky. 

With an awful metallic crack, the blue-and-white jet swept out of the swirling snow at 4 p.m., smacked against one of the bridge's spans, sheared through five cars like a machete, ripped through 50 feet of guard rail and plunged nose first into the frozen Potomac River.

For a brief moment the plane, its fuselage ripped open like a jagged tin can, floated in the opening it had punched in the inch-thick ice, then sank out of view with only its tail visible. Clinging to whatever pieces of Air Florida Flight 90 that protruded above the water were a half-dozen passengers.[1]  In all, 79 travelers had been dumped into the icy waters of the Potomac.

It would take 20 minutes until police helicopters would arrive to lend their resources to the rescue effort, and many of the people floating in the water would drown waiting or simply be too week to latch onto safety lines the chopper would lower into the water.  When one such helicopter lowered a life-preserver into the water in an attempt to lift a young woman out of the water, hundreds of onlookers on the banks of the river and millions more who would eventually see the failed rescue attempt on the evening news gasped as she suddenly lost her grip and plummeted back down into the icy depths. 

But Lenny Skutnik didn’t have time to gasp.  He was already running.  He had peeled his coat off and before anyone noticed what he was doing, he had launched himself into the water.  He somehow stroked his way out to this poor 22-year-old woman who could no longer even stay afloat and grabbed her and dragged her to shore, swimming through the water choked thick with jet fuel and chunks of ice. 

He was considered a hero.  Not long afterward, President Ronald Reagan remembered him and mentioned his name during the State of the Union address.

Lenny Skutnick, placed his life in mortal jeopardy to save hers.  This is the type of courage it takes to find ourselves living the life of response to God’s call.

In scripture we have many examples of bravery and courage. 

In the book of 1 Samuel 17, we find the story of David as he faced Goliath the Philistine.  It’s the story of a shepherd boy who stood up against a giant warrior with a stone and a strip of leather and prevailed.

In the book of Numbers[2] is the story of Caleb, an obscure and little-known Israelite who also shows great bravery.  Sent with several others to scout the land that the advancing Hebrew people travelling through the wilderness of Canaan is about to occupy, he and those others stand before the people and describe to them a frightening land filled with a huge and intimidating race of people whom the others believe will destroy the Israelites if they pass through the land.  The people of Israel, to whom these advance scouts are reporting, become agitated and are thrown in a turmoil because of what they hear.  But “Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” ³¹Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we…and all the people that we saw in it are of great size…and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”[3]

Caleb, this obscure little voice, is unafraid despite his colleagues’ fears.  In fact his voice is drowned out by the desperation and horror of his comrades.  The only thing that finally quiets the panic that ensues after Caleb is shouted down, are the strong and able voices of Moses and Aaron.  They once again quiet the people until Caleb again and Joshua, who would someday later succeed Moses as the leader of the people once more encourage the people that whatever the obstacle, God would lead them and make them victorious.  Needless to say their words hold true.  The courage and confidence of the seldom again heard from Caleb carries the day. 

Can you think of problems that have face you and yours lately?  What were they: medical, financial, simple but unexpected change, lack of time, loss of a job or loss of a friend to conflict?  These problems are all external, beyond you, beyond your family, beyond your co-workers, beyond your church, but they attack you and surround you from the outside.

Caleb’s problem was from both the outside AND the inside.  He was forced to stand up against the crowd.

When was the last time you were forced to stand against the crowd, not the enemy out there… the medical concern or the budget crisis, the policy change or the rising need for resources…but the enemy within?  The doubt and fear and anxiety that has taken over YOUR people, your family, your congregation, your company, your office or team?  Caleb’s courage was not only in standing up to the problem itelf, the giants in the land before him and his people, but his courage was also in standing up to his own people wracked with fear and doubt and panic.

And there are dozens more stories of such people who show amazing courage, throughout the old and new testaments of the bible.

In the sixth and seventh book of Acts of the Apostles, in the New Testament we find the story of Stephen, who was the first martyr for Christianity.  He was stoned by a crowd of his own people when called to defend himself before the high council of religious leaders.  He challenged them that they had been disobedient to God and even went to the extreme of insulting them.  “You stiff-necked people…you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. ⁵²Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers.”[4]  Is it any wonder they grabbed him, took him out into the street and stoned him as soon as he finished his words!

But, the ultimate courage shown in scripture, has to be the courage of Jesus.  Who at the Garden of Gethsemane, was so grieved at the knowledge of his own impending passion and death that he prayed that the horror, would pass from him.[5]  But he knew that it would not, and when he stood to go to meet his fate, and his companions drew a sword to defend him, he healed those that were struck and went forward with peace in his heart to face the inevitable.  He knew he could not turn away from his calling.  He knew he would have to obey because it was simply what he was about. 

As I’m sure many of you know, soon a new movie will be relesed in theaters depicting this story of courage, called “The Passion of the Christ.”  As Lent approaches, we too will focus more closely on this passion and the courage of Christ.

There is an ancient story about courage thate comes from the deserts of the East.  A holy man finds a scorpion stuck in the weeds and reeds on a riverbank.  Each time he approaches the animal to free it from its trap, the scorpion strikes at him.  Despite that one strike from its tale would gravely, perhaps mortaly would the holy man, he did not stop trying to save the scorpion.  A passerby, upon seeing what was happening, called out to the holy man, “Why bother, sir?  It’s within that scorpion’s nature to strike you and kill you.  He won’t ever let you near him.”  The holy man responded, “Just because it is in the scorpion’s nature to kill me, it does not give me freedom to neglect what I am compelled by my nature to do.  I cannot help but try to save this creature.”

Jesus could not avoid the fate that lay before him.  It was the vocation to which God had called him and he had nothing in his nature that could motivate him to avoid it.  Stephen was the same, as was Caleb and young David and even Lenny Skutnik.

In the history of the Armenian people is the story of another such man and his companions.  They too were challenged by circumstances of life to confront trouble in their quest to live according to God’s call.

In May of the year 451, much of Armenia was part of the Persian Empire.  The Persian King at the time, in an attempt to solidify his political power had been working to force Armenians to give up their faith and revert to the Persian national religion of Zoroastrianism.[6]  This religion was often understood as a religion of Fire because of the way fire was used in its temples and in Zoroastrian homes[7].  In order to enforce the Persian King Hasdgerd’s imperial law that Armenians submit to the Persian religion and give up their relatively new devotion of 150 years to the faith of Christ, The Persian army, made up of nearly a quarter millions soldiers met an Armenian Army of just 66,000. 

It was May 26, 451.  The Armenian General and Prince Vartan Mamigonian had been given several opportunities to give up the fight, to pay homage to the Persian faith and to withdraw his Armies from the battle field and return his men to their homes.  Counseled by princes of many other Armenian royal families and by the priest Ghevont, Vartan had chosen not to back down, but to rededicate himself to his faith and lead his people into this armed resistance.

He and his fellow princes issued these words as an official response to Hazdgerd’s demands.

After a close paraphrase of the Apostle’s Creed, they wrote:

From this faith no one can shake us, neither angels nor men, neither sword, nor fire, nor water, nor any, nor all horrid tortures. All our goods and possessions are in your hands, our bodies are before you; dispose of them as you will. If you leave us to our belief, we will, here on earth, choose no other master in your place, and in heaven choose no other God in place of Jesus Christ, for there is no other God. But should you require anything beyond this great testimony, here we are; our bodies are in your hands; do with them as you please. Tortures from you, submission from us; the sword is yours, the neck ours. We are no better that our fathers, who, for the sake of this faith, surrendered their goods, their possession, and their bodies.

Were we even immortal, it would become us to die for the love of Christ; for He Himself was immortal and so loved us that He took death on Himself, that we, by His death, might be freed from eternal death. And since He did not spare His immortality, we, who became mortal of our own will, will die for His love willingly, so that He may make us participators in His immortality. We shall die as mortals that He may accept our death as that of immortals.

Do not, therefore, interrogate us further concerning all this, because our bond of faith is not with men to be deceived like children, but to God with whom we are indisoluably bound and from Whom nothing can detach and separate us, neither now, nor later, nor forever, nor forever and ever. [8]

Vartanantz and the passion of Christ are almost super-human examples of courage.  So is Lenny Skutnik’s heroism.  Who knows how we’d perform in similar circumstances.  Would I jump into a river of ice and jet fuel to save another person’s life?  Would I stand up to sword and death rather than give up my faith?  Would I be able to follow through a plan of action that would mean salvation for countless millions but passion, suffering and death for myself?

I don’t know.  And frankly, based on my life and the odds of any of those things presenting themselves to me in my lifetime, I will probably never find out. 

More importantly for me, if I notice a friend being abused by their spouse, or a child by his or her parent, if I perceive an injustice in my place of work, that I could speak up to protest, if I become aware of a situation in this church, in the community, in my family, in my ordinary life in which I can have an impact for the purposes of God, will I have the courage to stand up and do something about it?

What kind of courage does it take to stand up to crowd as Caleb did?  Yes, his heroism and courage involved giants and conquest and an entire nation’s future hanging on his every word.  But it also involves something simply mundane in our daily existence as well.

What is it like to oppose a popular idea when your boss is for it?  What is it like to face your mother or your father or your child or your spouse when you know they are doing something that you feel is not right?  Do you have the courage?  Do you even have the time? 

God calls us to stand for his truth.  To find love in the midst of hatred, even if that means opposition and conflict.  To oppose sin and hatred and evil, even if it means to be faced with discomfort and disapproval and discord.

Who has the courage for such things?  Who has the time, the energy or the strength?  Do you?

The one more thing that each of these ancient heros has in common is that none of them believed they were going alone. Weary as Jesus was, daunted or intimidated as any of these folks must have been as they faced their future, they believed that whatever befell them, God’s grace went with them and the power of the Holy Spirit supported them.

Without the energy, the courage, the strength, the time or any other shortfall that we believe we may face as we stand up to the challenges of our day, all is provided through God’s care.  The only thing we need is the courage to ask God for this help, the courage to throw our lot in with God for what we believe is right and the courage to give up control and allow God to lead us, to truth, to righteousness and to justice.

Amen.