Daily Reading
Stirred to the Core
January 5, 2025
What is this drama God has dropped us into the middle of? What act of the play are we in and what do our scenes have to do with the larger story being told? Is our well-being even a consideration in the story line?
There is a stirring scene in Shakespeare’s play Henry V that perhaps gives us a glimpse of what God is up to, both in the larger story he is telling as well as his purpose in our own lives, as he makes us a part of all this. Henry, the Christian king of England, has invaded France. After several battles, his army is worn down to six or seven thousand weary, hungry, and sick soldiers, dogged by rain and cold and thoughts of perhaps never seeing home again. The French army, fresh and thirty thousand strong, sends a courier to offer Henry the opportunity to avoid certain and ignominious defeat by surrendering. The hearts of Henry’s army are divided as to the wisdom of battle. The king knows that hearts divided are hearts already defeated and he delivers a stirring speech on St. Crispin’s day, capturing his soldiers’ hearts up into something much larger:
There is a stirring scene in Shakespeare’s play Henry V that perhaps gives us a glimpse of what God is up to, both in the larger story he is telling as well as his purpose in our own lives, as he makes us a part of all this. Henry, the Christian king of England, has invaded France. After several battles, his army is worn down to six or seven thousand weary, hungry, and sick soldiers, dogged by rain and cold and thoughts of perhaps never seeing home again. The French army, fresh and thirty thousand strong, sends a courier to offer Henry the opportunity to avoid certain and ignominious defeat by surrendering. The hearts of Henry’s army are divided as to the wisdom of battle. The king knows that hearts divided are hearts already defeated and he delivers a stirring speech on St. Crispin’s day, capturing his soldiers’ hearts up into something much larger:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,
And say, tomorrow is Saint Crispian.
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words . . .
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered.
—ACT IV, SCENE III
Stirred to the core by the power of these words, Henry’s men throw themselves into the battle with abandon and defeat the French in a total rout. King Henry calls his men to something that transcends safety and common sense. He calls them to battle and suffering that will bring them all a glorious remembering in the hearts of men. His words rouse something that burns within their hearts; something set there for the purposes of a king.
The battles God calls us to, the woundings and cripplings of soul and body we all receive, cannot simply be ascribed to our sin and foolishness, or even to the sin and foolishness of others. When Jesus and the disciples were on the road one day, they came upon a man who had been blind since birth. “Rabbi, who sinned, this manor his parents?” they asked him. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in him.” And with that, Jesus spat on the ground, made some mud to place on the man’s eyes, and healed him (John 9:1–7).
Many of us who are reading these words have not yet received God’s healing. The display of God’s works through our wounds, losses, and sufferings is yet to be revealed.
Want More? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today