Bomber Boys

ISBN 978-0-00791215-1
Bomber Harris I'd heard of, but I knew little, if anything about the men under his command.  This book puts that straight.  It is written about those who actually flew, the pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, rear gunners.  Most of the recollections are take from their letters.  This is because the Bomber Boys formed the front line of WWII. That meant the death rate was appalling.  You cannot get away from the sense of loss - although there is a chapter dedicated to death the spectre of it is on almost every page.
We are taken from the start of the war, through the volunteers (all of them were, even if they'd been conscripted) selection and early training.  The RAF mechanism for putting crews together - not what you'd expect.  On to the operational flights, problems with the aircraft, and good things about the aircraft.  Here some of the main characters begin to appear. 
In later chapters their friendships are examined, in particular their loyalty to their crew.  A special closeness develops very quickly when under fire from flak and fighters in the dark at 15,000 feet., Their personal relationship are also covered and some time is spent on war time romances.  Some of these come from letters kept by girlfriends for the remainder of their lives. 
For the most part the Bomber Boys believed in what they were doing, even though they were regularly the target of propaganda, they were not so easily fooled.  That Nazi Germany was waging total war, and the combined efforts of the Allies were only just enough to turn the tide.   So when you hear about Dresden, don't only think in terms of revenge for Coventry, remember that when the raid was made it was not clear that the war had only months to run.

I bought this book towards the end of my unemployment in 2008, and have just finished reading it.  Without that episode I would never have considered such a topic.  I'm glad I did.  It is not an easy read - you just start to get to know someone only to hear they have been killed, or are 'missing', or taken prisoner.  Patrick Bishop has done a brilliant job of bringing the Bomber Boys to life, and latterly showing how little their achievements and sacrifice have been officially recognised.

There is only really one criticism.  The campaigns, or battles, for the Rhur, Berlin, Hambourg etc are spread throughout the book and it is a little difficult to keep current with just where we are in the war as the topics change.  However there are extensive indexes, references., plane schematics and the like to keep you busy once the reading is done.

 The main part of the book ends with:

Went the day well,
We died and never knew,
But well or ill, Freedom,
We died for you.

 --- which Oh, so many of them did.

Jesus expects ... belief (John 20:19-31)

Introduction

There are many things in this passage that we can see Jesus expects for his followers from the things that he says in this passage.

“Peace to be with you”

It's a greeting, but it is also something that Jesus expects for his followers.

“I am sending you”

He expects us to go – where ever we are able, to the people who he doesn't yet have a friendship with

“Receive the Holy Spirit”

He expects us to live together with the Holy Spirit, so that we can discern Gods will in any situation.

“Forgive or not forgive”

He expects us to know enough about what is happening to be the gate keeper for heaven. Those we forgive are in, any that we don't forgive are not.

“Believe”

He expects us to believe in Him, in what He has done for us and especially in His resurrection.

be blessed

This one applies to us, those who have believed without seeing, more than it does to the disciples that Jesus is talking to in the upper room. -

“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Activity

Tell people in an unbelievable way that you have some treasure in the box. Find out who believes and who doesn't.

Get one of the non believers to come and take a look. - Then tell the others what he has seen.

Illustration – Belief

“The Easter story is nothing but a myth,” Tom’s high school teacher announced to his class a few days before Easter break. “Jesus not only didn’t rise from the grave,” he continued, “but there’s no God in heaven who would allow his son to be crucified in the first place.”

“Sir, I believe in God,” Tom protested. “And I believe in the resurrection.”

“Tom, you can believe what you wish to, of course,” the teacher said, “However, the real world excludes the possibility of miracles like the resurrection. The resurrection is a scientific impossibility. No one who believes in miracles can also respect science.”

Then the teacher proposed an experiment. Reaching into his refrigerator, he produced a raw egg and held it up. “I’m going to drop this egg on the floor,” he said. “Gravity will pull it toward the floor that the egg will most certainly break apart.” Looking at Tom with a challenge, he said, “Now tom, I want you to pray a prayer right now and ask your God to keep this egg from breaking when it hits the floor. If he can do that, then you’ll have proven your point, and I’ll have to admit that there is a God.”

After pondering the challenge for a moment, Tom slowly stood up to pray: “Dear Heavenly Father,” Tom prayed, “I pray that when my teacher drops the egg, it will break into a hundred pieces. And also, Lord, I pray that when the egg does break, my teacher will have a heart attack and die. Amen.”

After a unison gasp, the class sat in silent expectation. For a moment the teacher did nothing. At last he looked at Tom and then the egg. Without a word he carefully put the egg back into the refrigerator. “Class dismissed,” the teacher said, and then he sat down to clear his desk.

The teacher apparently believed in God’s existence more than he thought, or perhaps just doubted his non-existence enough. That teacher wasn’t willing to bet his life that God didn’t exist.

About Thomas

Thomas has had a bad press. There is just this one incident in the scriptures where he is shown to doubt, and as a result the phrase “Doubting Thomas” has entered our vocabulary.

The other disciples had also been doubtful, Peter and John you could say were even scornful.

Lk 24:11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

Thomas is unlucky enough to have had his words recorded when in front of Jesus. So before we write Thomas off as some sort of archetypal sceptic lets take a look at what we know about him.

He's listed in the names of the 12 Apostles, by Matthew

Mt 10:2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John;

Mt 10:3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;

Mt 10:4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

… and Mark, and Luke. He is listed as one of the disciples present when Mattias is chosen to replace Judas in Acts chapter 1. He mainly features in John.

At the end of John we find Thomas going fishing with Peter, James and John, and Nathaniel, so its reasonable to assume that he too was a fisherman.

When Jesus decided to go to see his friend Lazarus, who had just died, the rest of the disciples were worried that they would be stoned – the Jews there had tried to stone him on his last visit, but in John 11:16 we read: Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Whatever we think of Thomas' beliefs, we cannot doubt his loyalty.

When Jesus was describing Heaven in John

Jn 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God ; trust also in me.
Jn 14:2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.
Jn 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back a and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
Jn 14:4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas responded:

“Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

It was one of those situations. There they all were listening intently, but probably not understanding very much of what Jesus was saying. This can easily happen when there is a very strong visionary leader. The followers really don't have a clue, but they are all so frightened of demonstrating their ignorance that they just sit there and nod in agreement. 

 

Anyone who's ever been in a meeting at work with a very senior manager, many rungs above the normal level that you have to deal with will have experienced the same thing. He will be talking about things you don't understand properly. Everyone is sitting there willing someone else to ask the first question. I remember sitting in a hall of about 250 people, at the end of the presentation the global director asked “Any questions?” There were plenty in my head, and also in everyone else's, but who would be first to ask. My immediate boss, who had quite a stutter, stood up and began to phrase his question. His manager would often explain what he was trying to say over his stuttering, but not this time. Everyone was so relieved that someone was starting the questioning process.

 

That's exactly what happened here. Once Thomas asked a question, Philip felt able to follow up with his own question.

Thomas, it seems to me, is a genuine sceptic, he's not happy just with words, he needs to understand their meaning. Its important to him that he has the message right. So we can't deny his courage here either.

The question that must be asked of Thomas is where was he? Why was he not with the rest of the disciples.

I suspect that Thomas was more badly affected by the events around the crucifixion than the others, perhaps that's because he really believed in Jesus, even though he wasn't always sure what Jesus was on about. If so, then deserting Jesus, running away from the arrest and not supporting his friends and leader, at the most critical time of his life would have hurt Thomas. He would be upset and ashamed at the way he behaved. He may even have been in hiding from the disciples.

Being a realistic person, he would have realised that he could not stay apart from his friends for long, so one week later he is back. The scene with Jesus is played out.

Thomas' reaction when he finally meets Jesus face to face, and in the flesh is “My Lord and my God”. It is the clearest statement of who Jesus is in the entire new testament. Nowhere else and no-one else, neither Paul nor Peter make the statement as starkly and straightforwardly.

You will note that the scripture we read today does not support the picture that Caravaggio painted. Thomas may have said “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” When offered the chance he didn't need it. He saw straight away that it was Jesus – something about the tone of voice perhaps underlined to him exactly who it was.

Belief / Faith

How we decide what we think is true is a very complicated subject. Evidence is certainly important but a lot of the time we do not have the knowledge to evaluate the evidence. Sometime there is just not enough evidence or contradictory evidence. An alternative strategy is to develop trusted sources – we call these people friends, in case you're loosing me. What friends say is taken much more at face value than what strangers say.

For Thomas, seeing his friend alive was enough to convince him that everything that He had said before his death was true. He had indeed risen from the dead, and the visual and oral evidence was overwhelming.

The same is not true for us. None of us have seen Jesus alive. That is why Jesus says “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”. Our belief is based on faith, which Hebrews 11:1 describes as "Faith is being sure of what we hope for. It is being certain of what we do not see."

Sometimes our faith, or our belief is stronger than at other times. Sometimes it can be next to non-existent. This can have a number of causes, but there is only one cure. Just as Thomas' doubts were overcome by an encounter with Jesus, so must our doubts be. In our case, that will probably be with the aid of another person.

 

It was probably the first time my faith had waned. After all I had only been a Christian a few years. I didn't understand what was happening. I thought perhaps I was no longer a Christian. I worried about it. No, of course I didn't speak to anyone. I just drifted along, attending church, but not really being there, and wishing I was somewhere else. My avoidance wasn't good enough though. Captain Ron (remember him?) asked me to give my testimony at some outreach event. I tried to get out of it, but (it seemed to me) I was put under quite a lot of pressure. So I agreed. I reluctantly sat down to prepare. All I had to do was tell the story of God in my life, but I wasn't sure of God, in my life or anywhere else.

I went through a process of remembering all the things that had happened. Each discussion I'd had, each argument. Each time I'd told someone that a God was unlikely, only to find out eventually that a God was really quite likely – because there was good evidence He had been here. I wrote, and later spoke, about the small steps that I'd taken from being a sceptical agnostic to a believer.

In the preparation I had a fresh encounter with Christ, and a few days later, when I spoke my testimony I was no longer wondering how and why I had ended up in the church.

 

Last week Warner spoke about praying, if your faith had died. I was in a position where to pray was ludicrous. More was needed, and I am thankful to God and to Captain Ron that the more that was needed was available.

I'm not one of those people who never has any doubts. I find their certainty can be quite frightening. I have always found that having doubts has helped to build my belief in the long term. Asking questions, proposing solutions, and doubting the answers, until I arrive at something that seams reasonable and sensible to me, has worked well for me so far.

It works to strengthen my belief and my faith.

It worked that way for Thomas too, he went on to found the church in South India.