'We're paratroopers...'

There is a stirring line in |Band of Brothers|.

The TV series tells the story of ‘Easy Company’ led by Dick Winters, part of the 101st US Airborne Division in the months following D-Day.

The German counter-attack came unexpectedly in December 1944 through the Ardennes and the 101st were given the task of holding the area around the strategic town of Bastogne. Short of warm clothing, equipment and ammunition, the soldiers of Easy Company arrive to find fellow Americans in retreat. At this point, Captain Winters is informed that the German panzers are about to cut the road to the South. ‘It looks like you guys are going to be surrounded’, explains Second Lieutenant George Rice. Then comes Winters’ heroic reply: ‘We’re paratroopers, Lieutenant. We’re supposed to be surrounded’.

The challenge

It’s like that with us as Christians. As contemporary Britain becomes increasingly worldly, godless and concerned with nothing other than self, the God-centred outlook of biblical Christianity will be increasingly out of step and under attack from a generation of people who simply do not understand us. But that situation should not surprise us. We belong to a different Master. We are outposts of another kingdom. We might say we are paratroopers from God’s future sent on a rescue mission into a lost world which is passing away. Surrounded by antagonists? That’s what we signed up for. Jesus told us that we had to take up the cross if we wanted to follow him (Mark 8.34). The challenge to us all in coming years will be to hold our nerve.