The Vanishing Generation

 Next week the world will mark the 80^th anniversary of a date President Franklin Roosevelt declared would live in infamy, December 7, 1941.  Just before 8 AM on a quiet Sunday morning the skies over Honolulu Hawaii echoed with the drone of Japanese Zero aircraft. The first wave bombed and strafed the airfields to prevent the launch of counter attacks.  Fifteen minutes later, the second wave dropped their torpedoes into Pearl Harbor permanently sinking the USS Arizona and the USS Oklahoma. Four other ships were sunk but recovered. 2,403 US service members died. It marked the entrance of the United States into World War II. 

 Tom Brokaw called those who experienced that day “The Greatest Generation.”  They grew up in the Great Depression.  They drove some of the first automobiles on the first paved highways in America. They went to work for the Works Progress Administration and built our nation’s infrastructure.  They strung wires across our country and brought electricity and telephones to  homes throughout America. They bought radios and invented the first television. They landed on the beaches at Normandy, raised the flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima and defended our freedom in World War II. More than 12 million served in the war. They were the first to enter space and chose to go to the moon.  Today, their generation is vanishing from the earth. Most have passed their 100^th birthday and they will all soon be gone.

 Next week, we will pause to pay our respects to that generation and the price they paid for freedom, peace and prosperity.  Our world continues to owe them a great debt

 Every generation must rise to face the challenges of their day: some they will inherit, others they create. The enemies that today’s generation face are as real as the enemies our fathers faced. In some ways they are more challenging and more difficult and more deadly. 

 We are all citizens of one planet.  We all breathe the same air, share the same space, harbor the same needs for respect, understanding, opportunity, freedom and faith. The past two years of Covid bear evidence to how intimately our world is connected. 

 Our greatest tribute to the “vanishing generation” would be to heed the admonition found in Scripture,   “Today, if you will hear His voice. Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the wilderness, ^… ‘I was disgusted with that generation, and said they are a people who err in their heart, and they do not know My ways.’”  (Psalm 95:6).   “This will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord.”  (Psalm 102:12).

 At the end of our days, may we all join Jesus’ mother in her confession, “For the Mighty One has done great things for me; and holy is His name. And His mercy is to generation after generation to those who fear Him.” (Luke 1:49-50).