Our Band of Brothers
When Jesus returned to Capernum, the word spread that he was in town. While he was preaching, four men arrived who were carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. Because of the crowd, they could not bring him to Jesus. They went up on the roof of the house and removed the tiles. Then they lowered him through the roof right in front of Jesus so that Jesus could minister to him. Like the four men who helped their paralyzed brother, today’s topic is Brotherhood.
In a Ted Talk Sebastian Junger talks about why soldiers miss combat after returning from a war zone. When they return home they often find themselves “missing in action.” The problem is that war does not have a simple meaning and unifying truth. Men are hard wired to hate war. However, in a room of peace loving people, everyone can find something compelling about war. This is a paradox that needs to be explained.
Sebastian served in an intense war zone in Afganistan where a fifth of the combat was concentrated in a six mile radius. His platoon of twenty men was hold up against the side of a cliff amidst machine gun nests and crude hut shelters. They were completely isolated from the world. The only thing they had was their band of brothers. One hot day after an extended period without combat, a lieutenant came by and said, “someone please attack us today because we’re going crazy without a fight.” Some people say that war is long stretches of boredom punctuated by brief moments of sheer terror.
When the enemy attacks, soldiers enter into an altered state of mind. Young men live for this adrenaline rush. This is why they enlist. They look for something to give them this intense rush.
Sebastian was leaning against a sandbag one day when a spray of sand hit his face. Then he heard the clap of rifle fire a split second later. He mused about the slight angle of attack that would have put the bullet through his head and thanked God for sparing his life.
When someone asked one of his war buddies what he missed about combat his reply was, “almost everything.” Sebastian thought about what he meant by that comment. He concluded that what his buddy missed was brotherhood. Brotherhood is a mutual agreement that you will lay down your life for those in your band of brothers. It means that you’ve got his back and he’s got yours.
One man said that the worst day of his deployment was when a bullet struck his helmet and briefly knocked him out. He could hear his buddies saying “he’s dead”. Before he drifted off into unconsciousness he thought to himself, “I’m not dead.” When he came to a few moments later, he didn’t think about the searing pain of being knocked unconscious. Rather he was wracked with guilt for not being able to protect his men for those few brief moments.
Sebastian realized that if you don’t have anything worth dying for then you have don’t have anything worth living for.
Combat draws many parallels to the Christian life. What combat veterans miss is their band of brothers. The brotherhood is where you fight to put yourself on the line to protect your brother’s back.
The church teaches about fellowship, however brotherhood goes way beyond fellowship. Looking through the lens of church fellowship can blind us to the problems of others. However, Brotherhood allows you to focus in on your brother’s wounds so that you can bind them up and then help him through the healing process. Brotherhood is allowing him to do the same for you since you’ve taken a bullet for him on the spiritual battlefield.
A dictionary definition of brotherhood says, “the state of being brothers.” The Urban Dictionary online says, a friend will talk you out of a fight but a brother will talk smack regardless of who’s right or wrong. Friends have each other in their contact lists, but brothers have each other in their emergency contacts on speed dial. Brotherhood is a relationship bound by blood.
One of the tenets of Influencers is that we band together with likeminded men. God has set us in the body of Christ to serve one another in love. Many men are masters of saying a lot without giving anything away. On the superficial level we can spout platitudes and cliches. We don’t need to fear rejection as long as we keep the conversation superficial. Terry noticed that after a major men’s conference, men miss what they need to do as a next step. After a Promise Keepers conference where 60,000 men attended, Terry found himself on a spiritual high. However a few weeks later, he fell into his old routine.
Many think that male loneliness is a problem outside of church culture. However men are just as lonely within the church. Lone wolf warriors and lone wolf Christianity is a type of punishment. It’s self imposed solitary confinement. The devil’s job is to divide and conquer. He picks off individuals from the flock so that he can devour them at his leisure. He knows that the way to defeat the body of Christ is to isolate individuals. A man alone will never ask another man to pray for him. He will never ask another man for help. When Satan keeps a man to himself, his original deception is still working. His original lie to Eve was, “you’re better off without relationships, especially your relationship with God.” Eve fell when she took the bait, hook, line, and sinker.
Combat veterans don’t miss the blood and guts of war. What they miss is the camaraderie where they know that I’ve got my brother’s back and he’s got mine. We need to understand that we live and die for our brothers and they live and die for for us.
The parallel in the Christian life is that I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live, I live by faith in the one who loved me and gave himself for me.
As brothers of the Son of God, and as blood brothers bound by the blood of our big brother Jesus Christ, may we ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael