Editorial April 24, 2017 Issue

Alertness on the frontline

Tony Lobl

On April 25 each year Australians and New Zealanders remember those fallen in combat. In particular, they commemorate over 11,000 soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who gave their lives during World War I in a thwarted effort to take the Gallipoli Peninsula from the Turks, who also suffered tragic losses.

These ANZAC Day observances include dawn parades, often carried out in silence, that commemorate the military routine of waking soldiers before sunrise so they could be fully alert should the enemy attack “in the morning’s half-light.”

No doubt many of those, on both sides of the battle, prayed in the first, quiet moments when they were stirred from sleep. For some, reassuring Bible passages would have echoed in the sanctuary of their silent thoughts—passages like Psalm 91, with its protective promise, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (verse 1).

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Bible Lens—April 24–30, 2017