Dee Carter brought a book into the office the other day for my perusal.  It was a find; a first edition of Monro Leaf’s 1942 picture book, "A Wartime Handbook for Young Americans".  Leaf is the author of the still-popular "Ferdinand", which is about a bull who’d rather sit quietly and smell the flowers than fight in the great bull ring of Seville.  Leaf’s text illustrated by the great Robert Lawson’s drawings is one of the two or three finest picture books ever written for children.  It combines a clever plot, outrageous humor, with subtle messages about individuality, and non-violence.  His “Handbook” is anything but subtle.  The first sentence, written in large bold letters, states: “WE ARE AT WAR”, followed by “WHAT WE ARE DOING IS VERY IMPORTANT”.  He then sets about, in a very deliberate manner, to describe to children what their country needs them to do in this “very important” effort.  The four things the nation needs its children to do are:  keep themselves healthy and strong; live pleasantly with those around them in these difficult times; care for their belongings, and learn to do without; and obey quickly, willingly, and cheerfully when they are asked to help.  He spends the rest of the book elaborating these points – encouraging children to grow victory gardens, collect old tires, make bomb shelters tidy and well-stocked, and help care for their homes, pets, and younger siblings.

            Most American children nowadays don’t think much about the current war in which we are engaged.  Fewer still have taken practical steps to do their part for the “very important” struggle we are in.  Few have because few have been asked.  Few adults have been asked, and although I am thankful every day that (most of) our children have been shielded from the danger and costs of the struggle we are in, I do wonder how they, or we can have a real appreciation of those costs if we don’t participate in them, if we are never called upon to do our part.

            David Kennedy, historian at Stanford University, has pointed out in the most recent Atlantic (October 2006, p.47) that the current war we are in has taken 1/10 the GDP WWII cost our economy, and that the fighting force deployed as a percentage of the general population is 1/125th of the number we deployed in WWII.  The all volunteer force is less demographically representative than the force that defeated Hitler and Tojo – especially in the ranks of the non-commissioned, with 42% coming from minorities.  He worries that we have become prosperous enough, and our fighting force efficient enough, that most of the population can be disengaged – only superficially invested in the war effort – and that this, in the long run, will damage our democracy.

            When I wrote above about our children being shielded from the war, I made sure to parenthetically add “most of”.  Our children, here, in our congregation, are well aware of what it means for dads to go away for months, to worry about their safety, to deal with the hardships created by their absence. They know because there have been scant weeks since that September Tuesday five years ago when one or more of our dads haven’t been in-country, facing the enemy.  Two of our dads are there now, as well as three others of our young men.  More will go. We know what it means to worry, and to pray, to rejoice at homecoming, and to comfort the family of a fallen hero.

            That we know.  But there is another cost we become disengaged form, at great cost to our own souls – I am speaking of something more precious even than the cost of freedom.  I am speaking of the cost of salvation.

            One of the lines I frequently repeat is this “Grace is immediate and absolute”, and indeed it is.  But that doesn’t mean grace is cheap.  Knowing that you were not redeemed from the futile way of life inherited from your forefathers with perishable things like silver and gold – but with precious blood, as of a lamb without spot or blemish, the blood of Christ (I Peter 3.18-19).  Peter’s argument is that unless we fully value the price paid for our salvation, we will not be able to “conduct ourselves with reverence during our stay upon this earth” (v.17).  “Knowing” makes conduct possible.

            That the cost of our salvation is inestimably high need not be proved.  But how do we know?  How do we grasp something of that cost? 

We know, you and I, something of the cost of America’s war on terror because we prayed for Mike Spann, then for his widow and children; because we prayed for Jeff Wells and Scott Potter (and so many others) and rejoiced when they came home safe; because we are praying for Dan McGlaughlin, Curtis Hamilton, and Paul Abila now, and have their wives and children among us.  We know the cost because we know the men.

            How do we begin to fathom the cost of Grace?  We learn by knowing the man who paid it.  Only by knowing Jesus better – better today than yesterday, and even better tomorrow – only by spending lots of time in the gospels, lots of time in prayer, and lots of time living life as he lived it – will we begin to know the cost of race.  And that knowledge is worth any cost we can pay.

I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord… I have suffered the loss of all things…that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being  conformed to his death; in order that I might attain to the resurrection from the dead.                              (Philippians 3.8-11 excerpted).