Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
It was the worst war in our nations history. Not only were there more soldiers killed than in any other war, but the soldiers on both sides were Americans. Some historians will say that the Civil War was about States Rights and Federal Rights. The average person still believes it was about the determining the future of the shame of slavery. In the midst of this Civil War, Julie Ward Howe wrote a hymn and entitled it The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
I know that there are people who have difficulty with Christian hymns that have the imagery of war, and some of our more recent hymnals have made decisions not to include some hymns with such imagery. There is a part of me that shares that view, believing that God grieves when war breaks out in any place at any time. It is a sign of our human frailty, our failure to be able to live together in mutual respect and to resolve differences peacefully. The old ugly nature of sin is no where more evident than in war and soldiers who have been in combat will tell you there is no glory in war.
Despite that reality, we cannot ignore the reality of sin, nor can we deny the imagery in the Bible of a great battle going on between God and the forces of evil that oppose God’s purposes. The challenge, of course, is to determine which side is which, for ordinarily both sides will be convinced that they are on God’s side. It is with that difficult challenge in mind, that I believe Julie Ward Howe wrote this hymn.
At its core, this hymn understands that challenge and provides the answer. While the author might herself despise war and pray for an end of all war, she is not so naïve as to think that the battle against human sinfulness is easy, for at its core, it is a battle first of all against ourselves. But she has become convinced that this war which has had such a terrible impact on her country, has begun to reveal which was God’s side and so it became the Battle Hymn of the Republic not of the Confederacy.
It is likely that her revelation was related to the Revelation of St. John of Patmos, who in his book by that name said,
Then I saw heaven open wide, and there was a white horse! His rider is faithful and true. . . He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. . . A sharp sword issues from his mouth with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with an iron rod; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God almighty and on his robe and on his thigh his name is written, “King of kings and Lord of lords.”
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, he is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, he has loosed the fateful lightening of his terrible swift sword, his truth is marching on. . .
I believe Julie Ward Howe began to see that the terrible war she was experiencing was part of this larger war between good and evil, and she was claiming that the side fighting to end slavery was on God’s side and was ultimately part of those following the one called the Word of God, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. It was an exhilarating realization that overflowed in a burst of enthusiasm – Glory, Glory Hallelujah, His truth is marching on!
But there was also a somber thought. For this terrible swift sword wielded by the one called Word of God is sharper than any human sword. As the writer of Hebrews reminds us, (Hebrews 4:12) Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Julie Ward Howe understands that As we take sides in a war, any war, we have to be careful to test our motives, to analyze our purposes, to place ourselves under the highest scrutiny, for in the end, the final judge and tester will be the one able to judge thoughts and intentions, who knows not only our hearts, but also places every action against the plumb of righteousness. His is the refiner’s fire that in the crucible of war will purify those serving God’s purposes and burn off and discard the slag of impurities on both sides of the battle.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before the judgment seat;
O be swift my soul to answer him;
Be jubilant my feet, our God is marching on.
And then she provides the final insight of her revelation. It is Jesus, who finally becomes not only our Lord, but also our example, the one who comes among us to transform us into his likeness. Jesus knows the real battle is within ourselves. We have to be able to fight against the powers of evil without becoming evil. We have to be able to strive against injustice without becoming unjust ourselves.
If our example is Jesus, then ultimately, our force must be a love force. This weekend, when we commemorate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we might be more aware than usual of the power of this love force. He said, “We must overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. “Humanity must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
This love force is evident when we do not hate our enemies, but we hate the misguided striving for power and underlying fear that fuels their passion. It is present when we become aware of our own desire for power and our own fears that lie just under the surface and resist them for the sake of the peace and justice for which we strive.
If our example is Jesus, then our emblem must be the cross, that symbol of suffering from which Jesus spoke words of forgiveness. Former President Ford is respected more now than he was in office, because he had the courage to believe that in the end, truth would triumph and the truth was that “without forgiveness there can be no healing.”
This same truth is evident in South Africa, where confession and forgiveness became the center of a peaceful transfer of power from a brutal apartheid regime to one of shared power.
And, for Julie Ward Howe, it was evident in our own civil war, when President Lincoln set the tone for peace, “With malice toward none and charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
If our example is Jesus, then new life, a resurrection that brings with it peace, love and unity in an individual or a nation becomes the evidence that our purposes are consistent with God’s purpose.
All this and more is what Ms. Howe saw in Jesus, whose glory is able to transform you and me, so that his life and light are in us.
In the beauty of the Lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me,
As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free
While God is marching on.
This hymn is often sung with conviction, and gusto, and I understand that. But I think it is better sung in hope – for only the long arc of history can finally tell us whether our purposes are consistent with God’s purposes. So we sing in hope that the one who sifts hearts of all will find in us people whose thoughts and deeds honor the Lord whom we follow. We sing in hope, that our lives reflect the one whom we follow, for in the end, Christ’s victory is assured. We sing in hope, knowing that when we are in step with Jesus, we can count the cadence, for his truth is marching on.
Amen.