By Bishop Hwa Yung

Christ rose from the dead to redeem everyone’s life in every corner of the world.

Those of my generation will remember a well known marching tune, which was the music score of the film, “The Bridge on the River Kwai”. The film featured the famous British actor, Gregory Peck, but it was actually a romanticised version of one of the most horribleepisodes of World War 2 which was close to home. The Japanese Army wanted a railroad to carry troops and supplies from Thailand to Burma (now Myanmar). About 180,000 Asian labourers, including many from Malaysia (then Malaya), and 60,000 Allied prisoners of war worked on the railway. Of these, around 90,000 Asian labourers and 16,000 Allied Prisoners of War (POWs) died as a direct result of the project. For this reason, it has always been referred to as the “Death Railway”!

Ernest Gordon, then a captain in the British army and a Japanese prisoner of war, survived the “Death Railway”, and had written an account of the same story in: Miracle on the River Kwai (Collins, 1963). It tells of the real life story of the struggles of the men who were conscripted and the inhumanities of life in a prisoner-of-war camp under the Japanese. Even the most refined "gentlemen", in the face of the extremities of suffering, degenerated to living utterly selfishly - cheating, lying, and stealing - just to survive! The morals and morale of the camp sank to the standards of the animal world. Then, strangely, something happened and the atmosphere began to change for the better. People started caring for one another and the mood, though circumstances were still difficult and painful, began to lift. Faith and hope and life returned and, for many of the prisoners, life was never the same again. What happened?

What sparked off the spiritual and moral regeneration of the prison camp was the initial example of a few prisoners who refused to live by the law of the jungle. One man, Angus, gave his food, his blanket and used his failing strength to care for a dying fellow prisoner. As a result, the dying man recovered, but Angus, who was so weakened in the process, died instead. In another incident, some tools went missing at the end of the day’s work. The Japanese guard, assuming that one of the prisoners had stolen them, was so infuriated that he threatened to kill the whole work party. Just before the guard started shooting, one prisoner stepped forward and owned up to the crime. He was immediately and brutally beaten to death. But, when the tools were counted again later, it was found that a mistake had been made - none were missing! It was then that the truth dawned on the others - that that man was innocent and had voluntarily died to save all his friends’ lives!

Ernest Gordon himself was also nursed back to life by another prisoner, Dusty, who spent his spare time cleaning, nursing, massaging and feeding him until his health and strength returned. Others began following these examples of sacrificial caring. The power of such examples of self-giving love began to touch and transform the whole camp! Gradually, but certainly, the self-seeking attitude was replaced by love and self-sacrifice. In place of death, hope and new life began to dawn.

Gordon was not a Christian when Angus died. But, as he thought about the death of Angus, his friend Dusty told him of the passage in John 15:13: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends". As he reflected on this, Gordon went on to write: "For the first time I understood. Dusty was a Meth-odist … and Dinty a Roman Catholic. Yet in each it was his faith that lent a special grace to his personality; through them both faith expressed a power, a presence greater than themselves. I was beginning to see that life was infinitely more complex, and at the same time more wonderful, than I had ever imagined … God had not left us. He was with us, calling us to live the di-vine life in fellowship ... I was beginning to be aware of the miracle that God was working in the Death Camp by the River Kwai." (p.95)

God’s presence had also begun touching other prisoners. Because he was an officer and had been to university, Gordon was asked to lead a regular discussion on Christianity. As the men studied the Bible together, many for the first time in their lives, faith began to grow. Gordon continues: "Through our readings and discussions we gradually came to know Jesus. He was one of us. He would understand our problems, because they were the kind of problems he had faced himself … He, too, had known bone-weariness from too much toil; the suffering, the rejection, the disappointments that make up the fabric of life. Yet he was no kill-joy." (p.101)

He then tells of his own coming to faith in Christ. "I had to go beyond Reason — I had to go to Faith. If I had learned to trust Jesus at all, I had to trust him here. Reason said, "We live to die." Jesus said, "I am the Resurrection and the life"." (p.102)

"In the light of our new understanding, the Crucifixion was seen as being completely relevant to our situation. A God who remained indifferent to the suffering of His creatures was not a God whom we could accept. The Crucifixion, however, told us that God was in our midst, suffering for us. We did not know the full answer to the mystery of suffering, but we could see that so much of it was caused by ‘man’s humanity to man’, by selfishness, by greed and by all the forces of death that we readily support in the normal course of life … But we could see that God was not indifferent to such pain." (p.102)

Ernest Gordon came to faith in the midst of all the suffering and death. He survived the indescribable horrors and cruelties of the "Death Railway", and eventually became a pastor and then Dean of the Chapel at Princeton University. But what happened to Dusty, the Methodist, who nursed him back to life? They had lost touch during the war, and Gordon looked forward to meeting him again when the war ended. After some effort, Gordon finally found another man who had known of Dusty Miller. This man was reluctant to talk about what happened. When pressed, he finally said this: "He hadn’t done anything wrong. The Nip (Japanese) hated him because he couldn’t break him. You know how he was — a good man if ever there was one. That’s why he hated him." "What did the Nip do to him?" asked Gordon. "He strung him up a tree … Yes. He cruci-fied him." (p.173)

I write this as we approach Holy Week a time when we remember afresh the Cross of Christ and His resurrection. There are spiritual laws in this life that we cannot explain with Reason. Yet those who have lived through and experienced the horrors, pains, sufferings and death, like Ernest Gordon, know only too well that these laws are true. Which of Jesus’ disciples could accept the fact that he was preparing for his crucifixion as he headed towards Jerusalem during the last few months of his life on earth? Which of them took him seriously when he told them he would rise from the dead? Which of them could understand that "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24)?

Dusty was literally crucified. But through his life and those of other fellow prisoners, new life came to Ernest Gordon and many others, and a new world was born in the midst of death in the Thai-Burmese jungles! We today also live in jungles of hate and not forgiving, of human pride and self-seeking greed, of ruthless competition and destructive consumerism, of immorality in private lives and widespread corruption in public lives, of growing ethnic and religious chauvinism, and the like. As we ponder afresh on the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ and all that he taught concerning them, should we not ask ourselves and our churches this question too: "How can new life and a new world be born in the "jungles" that we live in?"