When I was 11 my family visited the American military
cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer which sits on the bluffs above D-Day’s Omaha
beach. It was a beautiful sunny day in 1968 and all I wanted to do was explore
the remaining WWII fortifications and play solider with my brother. I was
stopped by the sight of row upon row of perfectly aligned white marble crosses
that seemed to go on forever. It is a painfully beautiful sight where
conversation, if any, is held in hushed tones as if talking any louder would
dishonor the dead. I can’t say for certain but I think even an 11-year-old boy
might have been moved to tears on such sacred ground. The widow weeping gives
her only son to the prophet whose presence she assumes has led to his death.
“What do you have against me, O man of God?” The prophet is equally pained and
questions the intention of the One for whom he speaks. “Why, O Lord, have you
killed the widow’s son?” I imagine not a few of the 9,387 who lie above the
beach, or the 1,557 never found, whose names etched in the stone colonnade are
all that remain, had mothers like the widow who wept their questions, “Why?” or
like the prophet accused God of less than holy intentions. No doubt the mothers
of the 21,222 Germans buried at nearby La Cambe, asked the same question.
Elijah stretched out three times on the breath-less body of the widow’s son and
the Lord restored his life so that returned to his mother she believed the
truth; life is stronger than death. The lifeless body of the Lord, stretched
out three days in the darkness of death, burst forth from the tomb so that one
day those slain in the course of human conflict might be revived and know the
truth; life is stronger than death. When at last the nations learn to study war
no more and death is swallowed up in victory those who wait in the silent sleep
of death at places like Colleville-sur-Mer and La Cambe will meet again, not as divided brothers in arms, but as brothers united in the arms the Lord.
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