Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Alfred Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade is chilling reading. Depicting a charge of men on horseback bearing sabres into a valley filled with their enemy armed to the teeth with firepower, it shows an act of great foolishness during the Crimean War.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
Reading it in an Australian context, it sounds a lot like Gallipoli. During World War I, about one tenth of the total population enlisted in the armed forces. 15% of those men died, another 35% were gassed, injured, or captured. The charge of the ANZACS at Gallipoli is an event still imprinted on the Australian consciousness almost a century later.
Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
These soldiers, and many other men and women are remembered for their service. Anzac Day each year is an occasion of particular remembrance.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.
The ANZACS died for others. (And, indeed, countless others in theatres of war throughout history.) They died for those they did not know. For a great number who they could never have met. Their deaths were in place of those they left behind.
So what makes the single death of the one man Jesus so special?
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
[Romans 5:6–8]
Unlike the ANZACS, Christ died for his enemies. Not for his friends, family, countrymen, but his enemies. But I must confess that I still, at times, struggle to see this as unique. As so completely particular to Jesus as to render every other death pale in comparison.
I think it’s because I don’t adequately feel the horror of sin.
I don’t properly see my former sinful self as so wholly separate from the holy, right, pure, good God. I was an enemy. An enemy so opposed to God that the bitterness between two men at war is no comparison.
Sin is ugly, twisted, horrific. But it comes so easily, so naturally, that I don’t feel its power. I don’t see the horror.
Even still, at just the right time, Christ died for me.
I’ve spent a little bit of time this year with a bunch of Christians I didn’t know particularly well before now. If you’ve never been part of such a group, one thing that members often do to get to know each other better is share a bit of their life story. Specifically, how they came to be a Christian.