The Battle of Remagen and the Cross of Jesus Christ
Dec 18, 2018 10:36:32 GMT -5
John, frienduff, and 1 more like this
Post by PG4Him on Dec 18, 2018 10:36:32 GMT -5
It was spring of 1945 — the fever pitch of World War Two. Allied forces had pushed the mighty Germans back across western Europe in a costly, tedious grind-it-out confrontation. A massive river now stood between the Allied position and the Berlin skyline. It was the legendary river Rhine, which had defined boundaries, stalled armies, and shaped the nations of Europe for centuries. There it was again... that great brick wall. To cross this river was to win the war, but crossing was nigh impossible.
The Germans had systematically destroyed various crossing options. Bridges, boat slips, whatever offered hope to get across, blown to smithereens by a well-placed detonator. It would take months to build a bridge strong enough for tanks to cross, assuming such a thing could even be done under heavy German fire. The massive river Rhine: immovable, impertinent, disinterested, uncrossable. No amount of human technology had been able to best this age-old barrier.
And then, a miracle. The Germans had strapped Ludendorff Bridge with enough explosives to send it sky high, but the detonators failed. Imagine the shock of the US First Army when they hopelessly trudged to the banks of the Rhine and suddenly discovered a giant steel bridge standing empty. The Allies wasted no time. A convoy lined up, bumper to bumper, crossing the bridge en masse before the Germans caught their mistake.
It didn’t take the Germans long. A battle ensued as frustrated Germans circled back to get rid of the bridge. They tried every trick in the book, even inventing a few new ones, to make that bridge disappear. The Allies lovingly guarded it, patched it, reinforced it, and defended it, counting their daily blessings as the nonstop convoy rolled on. By the time the Germans eventually succeeded in collapsing the bridge, tens of thousands of Allied soldiers were driving tanks and jeeps on German soil.
You know what didn’t happen in the spring of 1945? Allied soldiers did not sit around complaining that they only had one bridge. They did not accuse the bridge of being too exclusive. They did not whine that the bridge was too small. They did not ask questions about kind-hearted patriots trying to swim across. They latched on to that bridge with all of their might, and they allocated resources to keeping it open.
We have a bridge to God. There is one bridge. The enemy doesn’t like this bridge, so it is constantly under attack. The intensity of the enemy’s attack shows us how valuable this bridge is. Stop complaining that you don’t like the bridge, and accept the truth that you’d best be crossing it. There is no other name by which we can be saved.
The Germans had systematically destroyed various crossing options. Bridges, boat slips, whatever offered hope to get across, blown to smithereens by a well-placed detonator. It would take months to build a bridge strong enough for tanks to cross, assuming such a thing could even be done under heavy German fire. The massive river Rhine: immovable, impertinent, disinterested, uncrossable. No amount of human technology had been able to best this age-old barrier.
And then, a miracle. The Germans had strapped Ludendorff Bridge with enough explosives to send it sky high, but the detonators failed. Imagine the shock of the US First Army when they hopelessly trudged to the banks of the Rhine and suddenly discovered a giant steel bridge standing empty. The Allies wasted no time. A convoy lined up, bumper to bumper, crossing the bridge en masse before the Germans caught their mistake.
It didn’t take the Germans long. A battle ensued as frustrated Germans circled back to get rid of the bridge. They tried every trick in the book, even inventing a few new ones, to make that bridge disappear. The Allies lovingly guarded it, patched it, reinforced it, and defended it, counting their daily blessings as the nonstop convoy rolled on. By the time the Germans eventually succeeded in collapsing the bridge, tens of thousands of Allied soldiers were driving tanks and jeeps on German soil.
You know what didn’t happen in the spring of 1945? Allied soldiers did not sit around complaining that they only had one bridge. They did not accuse the bridge of being too exclusive. They did not whine that the bridge was too small. They did not ask questions about kind-hearted patriots trying to swim across. They latched on to that bridge with all of their might, and they allocated resources to keeping it open.
We have a bridge to God. There is one bridge. The enemy doesn’t like this bridge, so it is constantly under attack. The intensity of the enemy’s attack shows us how valuable this bridge is. Stop complaining that you don’t like the bridge, and accept the truth that you’d best be crossing it. There is no other name by which we can be saved.