A Swiss businessman named Henry Dunant, seeking to arrange a meeting with Napoleon, found himself a witness to one of the most horrific battles in history.
It was June 24, 1859, when the French and Italian forces attacked an Austrian army at the Battle of Solferino. There were 300,000 men engaged in this battle that lasted 15 hours leaving thousands dead and 40,000 wounded, most of whom had no medical aid. It was this sight that moved Dunant to write a book that led to the first Geneva Convention and the formation of an international relief agency. To protect the doctors and nurses, the nations who started this agency made a fitting tribute to this Swiss businessman by reversing the colors of the Swiss flag and created the Red Cross. So even today a Red Cross painted on an ambulance or worn on the arm of medical staff is respected. It has become a sign that there is medical help that crosses the barriers of hate and anger and death and offers hope.
I am reminded that there is another emblem sometimes worn on a collar, or under the word chaplain that communicates “someone who cares.” Here is someone who has a message of light, of hope, or peace in the midst of disaster and death and despair.
Today it may be seen as a cross on a necklace or a cross tie tac, or a cross on a New Testament or a cross on a building that gains respect and points us to the fact that there is hope in the midst of despair; there is peace in the midst of suffering; there is life in the midst of death. It is the shadow of the cross that stretches through the pages of history to point us to the fact that God became flesh and paid the price to redeem us from the bondage of sin that has separated us from God. It was Jesus who came and lay down his life on a cross to make it possible for all who will simply call on his name to have eternal life.
You see, it was Jesus who became the lamb of God that takes away the sin that has condemned us. The cross has become the symbol of faith to all who will believe. For Christians all over the world we still sing “I will cherish the old, rugged cross” and “The way of the cross leads home.”
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A Swiss businessman named Henry Dunant, seeking to arrange a meeting with Napoleon, found himself a witness to one of the most horrific battles in history.
It was June 24, 1859, when the French and Italian forces attacked an Austrian army at the Battle of Solferino. There were 300,000 men engaged in this battle that lasted 15 hours leaving thousands dead and 40,000 wounded, most of whom had no medical aid. It was this sight that moved Dunant to write a book that led to the first Geneva Convention and the formation of an international relief agency. To protect the doctors and nurses, the nations who started this agency made a fitting tribute to this Swiss businessman by reversing the colors of the Swiss flag and created the Red Cross. So even today a Red Cross painted on an ambulance or worn on the arm of medical staff is respected. It has become a sign that there is medical help that crosses the barriers of hate and anger and death and offers hope.
I am reminded that there is another emblem sometimes worn on a collar, or under the word chaplain that communicates “someone who cares.” Here is someone who has a message of light, of hope, or peace in the midst of disaster and death and despair.
Today it may be seen as a cross on a necklace or a cross tie tac, or a cross on a New Testament or a cross on a building that gains respect and points us to the fact that there is hope in the midst of despair; there is peace in the midst of suffering; there is life in the midst of death. It is the shadow of the cross that stretches through the pages of history to point us to the fact that God became flesh and paid the price to redeem us from the bondage of sin that has separated us from God. It was Jesus who came and lay down his life on a cross to make it possible for all who will simply call on his name to have eternal life.
You see, it was Jesus who became the lamb of God that takes away the sin that has condemned us. The cross has become the symbol of faith to all who will believe. For Christians all over the world we still sing “I will cherish the old, rugged cross” and “The way of the cross leads home.”
