I’ve just finished reading a book called Citizen Soldiers written by Stephen E. Ambrose. It’s an account of the allied invasion and consequent liberation of Europe from the Germans. One chapter relates to prisoners of war. The author quotes from the memoir of Sergeant Zane Schlemmer of the 82nd Airborne who addressed the treatment of POWs, and I quote, “we had developed an intense hatred for anything and everything German. We were particularly unhappy about sending them, as prisoners, to our rear. We had to stay up there [front line of the battle] and resented anyone going back to shelter and warmth.”

This reminded me of a similar situation in Miracle on the River Kwai, a book first published in 1963 by Captain Ernest Gordon. When I read this story years ago, I thought it was one of the most amazing accounts of grace I’d ever come across. To understand the background behind the following account, one has to read the book. I believe that it has been republished with a new title, To End All Wars, and is available at Koorong. (Unfortunately, the movie by the same name does not do justice to the theme of grace revealed in the book.) The following is a bit of a long read, but it truly encapsulates the point I am wishing to make, about men who have been subjected to the horrors of war and how the grace of God transformed their reactions towards their enemies.

Farther on, we were shunted on to a siding for a lengthy stay. We found ourselves on the same track with several carloads of Japanese wounded. They were on their own and without medical care. No longer fit for action, they had been packed onto railway trucks which were being returned to Bangkok. Whenever one of them died en route, he was thrown off into the jungle. The ones who survived to reach Bangkok would presumably receive some form of medical treatment there. But they were given none on the way.

They were in a shocking state; I have never seen men filthier. Their uniforms were encrusted with mud and blood and excrement. Their wounds, sorely inflamed and full of pus, crawled with maggots. The maggots, however, in eating the putrefying flesh, probably prevented gangrene.

We could understand now why the Japanese were so cruel to their prisoners. If they didn’t care for their own, why should they care for us? The wounded men looked at us forlornly as they sat with their heads resting against the carriages waiting fatalistically for death. They were the refuse of war; there was nowhere to go and no one to care for them. These were the enemy, more cowed and defeated than we had ever been. Without a word, most of the officers in my section unbuckled their packs, took out part of their ration and a rag or two, and with water canteens in their hands went over the Japanese train to help them. Our guards tried to prevent us, bawling, “No goodka! No goodka!” But we ignored them and knelt by the side of the enemy to give them food and water, to clean and bind up their wounds, to smile and say a kind word. Grateful cries of “Aragutto” (“Thank you”) followed us when we left. An allied officer from another section of the train had been taking it all in. “What fools you all are!” he said to me. “Don’t you realise that those are the enemy?”

“Have you never heard the story of the man who was going from Jerusalem to Jericho?” I asked him. He gave me a blank look, so I continued, “He was attacked by thugs, stripped of everything and left to die. Along came a priest; he passed him by. Then came a lawyer, a man of high principles; he passed as well. Next came a Samaritan, a half-caste, a heretic, an enemy. But he didn’t pass by; he stopped. His heart was filled with compassion. Kneeling down, he poured some wine through the unconscious lips, cleaned and dressed the helpless man’s wounds, then took him to an inn where he had him cared for at his own expense.”

“But that’s different!” the officer protested angrily. “That’s in the Bible. These are the swine who’ve starved us and beaten us. They’ve murdered our comrades. These are our enemies.”

“Who is mine enemy? Isn’t he my neighbour? God makes neighbours; we make enemies. You know full well that is where we excel. Mine enemy may be anyone who threatens my privileges – or my security – or my person – as well as those poor wretches who know no better. If they don’t we, at least, should. Whether we like it or not, we are the ones who create the enemy and lose the neighbour. Mine enemy is my neighbour!”

He gave me a scornful glance and, turning his back, left me to my thoughts.

I regarded my comrades with wonder. Eighteen months ago they would have joined readily in the destruction of our captors had they fallen into their hands. Now these same men were dressing the enemy’s wounds. We had experienced a moment of grace, there in those blood-stained railway cars. God had broken through the barriers of our prejudice and had given us the will to obey His command, “Thou shalt love.”

The words of Jesus came to me: “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven.”

The reply Reason made to such a command was, “But we have to be practical because we live in a practical world. It doesn’t pay to love – particularly your enemy.”

Now faith answered, “Quite true. One need but look at the Cross to see this demonstrated. But – there is no other way to love. ‘Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone.’”

Our experience of life in death had taught us that the way to life leads through death. To see Jesus was to see in Him that love which is the very highest form of life, that love which has sacrifice as the logical end of its action. To hang on to life, to guard it jealously, to preserve it, is to end up by burying it. Each of us must die to the physical life of selfishness, the life controlled by our hates, fears, lusts and prejudices in order to live in the flesh the life that is of the spirit. This is the basic law that cannot be broken except at great cost.

We were beginning to understand that as there were no easy ways for God, so there were no easy ways for us. God, we saw, was honouring us by allowing us to share in His labours, aye, in His agony – for the world He loves. God, in finding us, had enabled us to find our brother.

Ernest Gordon (Capt), Miracle on the River Kwai