Lost Causes

Sometimes, taking a stand when all around agree against it, even those close to you, seems a lost cause. Our victory is not guaranteed, but courage is needed to fight the good fight.

Long ago, a man witnessed the death of someone convicted of blasphemy and treason. He waited until capital punishment exacted its last ounce of blood, and soon after, he risked his life in claiming the corpse from a hardened governor. Alone, he sought the right to prevent the desecration of this special body from being cast into an open incineration pit known by the locals as “Gehenna.” In this act, what was anonymous and unseen by most, the pious man from Arimathea did good to this dead man, now all but forgotten by most. His effort seemed to them a pathetic “lost cause.”

Our lives in Christ have been compared to a battle, a spiritual warfare not against flesh and blood, nor one where many of us in our own experience have seen a striving unto blood. But as we’ve seen in the Old Testament readings, there were battles upon battles that the faithful of old were frequently engaged in. If we were living in that era, we’d often have no choice but to put our armor on and fight the enemy. This was a duty expected throughout all generations by kings, presidents, and tyrants from their subjects. “For king and country” was often the motto of an army, often including, “For God, who is on our side!” Every leader believed military service to him was justified. 

But are there many just causes? Even Israel and Judah fought each other in decades-long civil wars. Who was in the right? Often neither. For God does not love war, yet has used it often as a means to an end. His battles against evil were justified in Israel conquering the land of Canaan and defending His people. Yet we see so many times how their falling away brought strife and bloodshed, either mercilessly being slaughtered or cruelly doing the same, even when God wasn’t on their side. 

So many times, God uses one evil nation to destroy the more evil nation, and that includes Israel and Judah itself. As centuries have seen, powers-that-be have sent young men off to war as so much cannon fodder: “My country, right or wrong” was the acceptable adage, and only upon returning did the surviving wounded and otherwise PTSD-afflicted veterans question the eternal soldier’s creed: “Ours is not to question why, ours is but to do or die.”1

Even those faithful in Israel would find themselves on the battlefront, fighting for an evil king. Most causes were not just. Men were often sent into battle with poor training, poor equipment, poor tactics, and, sadly, useless objectives. Often, the pride of military commanders forfeited many young lives, mistakes costing hundreds of thousands of lives in casualties and collateral damage, not to mention the horror of countless civilian deaths. 

But we must take lessons from history, even if it is in spiritual terms, to apply man’s experiences to our lives as we, like Paul told Timothy: 

A great lesson from this was that victory was not guaranteed, but that courage was needed to fight the good fight. Jonathan loyally died fighting alongside his father, Saul. At their darkest hour, the king and his sons showed courage even though they were privy to the ominous warning from Samuel’s vision the night before. The cause was lost even before the battle had begun. Imagine the bravery mustered by a soldier, knowing ahead of time his entire army would be wiped out! All of those soldiers died with great courage, and some died with great faith in their God. 

Even pagan soldiers throughout history have been known to battle on until the end, when all seemed hopeless. Yet courage is such a major aspect of faith that God even gave the Philistines a victory when they claimed the Ark of the Covenant in a battle of almost certain doom for them. God indeed respects courage from His followers. He is displeased with cowardice.

Someone once said that the greatest causes were the lost ones. In them, courage was the standard bearer that could purchase survival against overwhelming odds and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. 

Yet again, not all “just causes” are guaranteed, at least not in this life.

Some of the greatest and most important victories in secular military history were the apparent “lost causes.” In WWI, the supreme Allied commander Ferdinand Foch knew he was in dire circumstances in the Battle of the Marne. He said, “My center is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent. I shall attack.” The Allies went on to win the battle and the war.

Courage and quick thinking in WWII came through in what can only be described as Divine Intervention, as Prime Minister Churchill devised a plan to rescue the nearly one million soldiers stranded, defenseless on a beach in France, only days away from capture or annihilation. This probably would have led to the unconditional surrender of the Allies.

An armada of yachts, fishing boats, and other vessels were quickly called into action, crossing the English Channel several times to bring their boys back home. I wonder how many times God was given credit for bringing the thick, darkening fog over the water, which blinded the Nazi warplanes, saving the allies who would go on to escape and live to fight another day? 

But not all heroic acts of bravery ended successfully, as during the Crimean War, the British forces, due to a communication breakdown, charged their Light Cavalry up a hill against the Russians in a suicide run, which ended in death or capture for many of them.1  Yet their courage (or foolishness) was so inspiring to the British and such a false sense of success to the enemy that it yielded the fervor and boldness for the British and her French allies to carry on and win the war.  

These stories to us, at least as conscientious objectors, are not to condone war, for too many atrocities have been committed throughout history in the name of the “just cause.” Our cause is not one of heroism against warriors or violence against the enemy. We are encouraged to draw examples from their courage, discipline, and self-sacrifice, as Paul taught.

But is it always a fight we are guaranteed to win? No, not always, at least not in this life. The banner we take up, brethren and sisters, is the one of “lost causes.” In Hebrews 11, we see the dark side often associated with many battles, including the spiritual battles: the defeat in a lost cause. We read in Hebrews:

What courage these deprived, destitute, and ultimately murdered saints had in their faith. Make no mistake; many prophets came before us to declare God’s prophetic warning:  Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel suffered greatly, and all the prophets spoke of the lost cause, where only God knew the ultimate outcome.  

Sometimes, what looks like lost causes in Scripture to men are victories for God. Examples include Gideon and his 300. The four people with leprosy had nothing to lose by going into the Syrian encampment by night and finding enough food to save their people. Or the woman caught in adultery, who had no hope of being rescued until a certain man came to her defense. Or the man beaten and robbed, left for dead at the side of the road in the well-known parable, who was looked upon as a lost cause by all but one. 

And what of the many that pass our way? What about the destitute, the lonely, those in darkness, and those without hope in this world that sees them all as lost causes? God sees them as people with potential. What if there was someone once in our midst, long ago gone and considered not worth the cost of retrieval—the lost cause? Every time we put our necks on the line for anyone with a reputation that our help could backfire, we take up a lost cause. Every time we give to charity, seeking to help the refugees, when our donation appears as only a drop in the bucket—we have taken up a lost cause. When nurses comfort and succor those in palliative care who are effectually passed off by so many others as a lost cause, these caregivers know that not every patient will be a success story. Still, they carry on tirelessly to comfort the next case.  

There’s a story of a man whose conscience eventually got the better of him and turned from his materialistic ways during WWII and began to save hundreds of Jews, giving them jobs in his factory to keep them from the death camps. Hope for most of them had become a lost cause, but the intervention of one man, whose heart God had touched, saved over 1,000. Just after WWII ended, he received a gold ring donated by his employees. Engraved upon that ring was a quote from the Talmud: “Whoever saves a life saves the entire world.”  

As long as we hold life dear, we cannot withhold our desire to fight until the end so that just one more can be saved and kept alive. In Scripture and our own experience, we find that such worthy causes, or even apparently, a lost cause, must often be fought alone. Yet, we are never truly alone.

There’s an old poem called Heroes, written sometime after the American War of Independence. It was written by Enos Franklin Hayward (1866-1927).

The bravest heroes in the world,
are those who fight alone;

Heroically, they win or lose,
nor let their names be known;

They crave not the wreath of laurel, nor give thought to fame,

Though they fight a losing battle,
they are heroes just the same;

Their hearts may break with sorrow, and their eyes be dim with tears,

They weep alone in silence,
so that no one overhears;

The only help they ever call,
is from their God above,—

Their battles are within their hearts, between despair and love;

Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, the World may never know,

For should they win, you’d never hear a bugler’s trumpet blow;

And if they lose, they only smile in listless sort of way,

And never tell the “World”
about their silent bitter fray.

There is a phrase that has crept back into our vernacular, with the origins being from wartimes. The phrase is, “Is this the hill you are willing to die on?” It is a reference that strikes at the core of every conflicted heart beyond the battlefield. People use it to refer to a fight we may not win, probably will not win, and might not even be worth it.  

In war, winning or losing a hill is a battle deemed of major importance as it is the higher ground, strategically the best vantage point, and one of bringing victory closer. Sadly, plots of ground have been fought over for centuries, often to no ultimate advantage. Many lives are lost on both sides, which highlights the absolute horror and futility of war. 

Sometimes, we choose not to fight for something worthy, as it is too strenuous an exertion, not worth the pain, an inconvenience, or requires too much time and sacrifice. Maybe we’ve been too scared, too lazy, or too selfish. Lost causes aren’t always taken up in our lives for one another, for our faith, and for our Lord—to go out of our way to defend someone and vouch for those who’ve gone astray. We think, “I could get in trouble standing up for someone who’s not an appropriate defendant.”

Sometimes, taking a stand when all around agree against it, even those close to you, seems a lost cause. “I’ll just remain silent and live to fight another day.” “I may deny Jesus this time, but I’ll defend him next time. It’s not a hill I want to die on.” Yes, we choose our battles, it is said, but aren’t there a few we wish we could have back and do over? We know we all have let our Lord down at one time or another.

We were all lost causes once, or so the world would have us believe. For truly, what hope had we? But we were found, fought for, and redeemed. Our cause was taken up.

Someone took their stand 2,000 years ago, on a lonely hill when they all forsook him. No one else could see that his cause was worth all that suffering. The price was too steep. The cost is too precious. Yet, though alone, this was the hill he was willing to die on, giving his all in what seemed to be the most lost cause. Yet only those following him will find where that cause will lead.

Peter Wisniowski,
Brampton Ecclesia, ON