Fighting Against the Truth

Recently I watched the movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.  A chronological account of the book written by some of the soldiers who defended a terrorist attack against Americans working in Libya on September 11, 2012. Despite repeated requests for help, our government did not provide it. Drones in the area showed the rain of bombs and bullets in real time, our citizens were outnumbered and under armed.  Four were killed. The White House issued a statement saying that the attackers were an angry mob reacting to an Internet movie about Muslims and arrested a filmmaker.  Our soldiers were able to hear the news and at least one was able to call home during the attack and tell his wife that what was going on had nothing to do with a movie.

In the four years since this horrific incident, much has been published and debated about what did or did not happen that horrible day. This has become a polarizing topic depending on your political affiliation. You will either be accused of being of sound mind or an uninformed lunatic. One thing I know for certain is that Director Michael Bay sought to create an accurate retelling of the book without party bias. I believe he absolutely achieved that goal. What the audience sees is the story of heroes who fought to do the right thing in the face of death. Heroes that continued their fight in spite of the lack of leadership. Silence from above did not thwart the true nature of their brotherhood. Any parent would fall on their knees to have a child grow up to have even 5% of the character our soldiers displayed.

As I watched - riveted and resisting the urge to even blink - I noted how powerful words had been at the time. Words that had no connection to reality, but words that were repeated for weeks to all of America by our leaders and politicians. I remember yelling at the TV when I kept hearing about the film and the mob. Those words certainly had power. But here we are, in our fourth year of a federal investigation. Even if the truth is never fully uncovered or admitted to, we can know the truth without their permission.

My mind jumped to another polarizing event in history long, long ago. At that time, the politicos were also trying to restate reality so that citizens would continue to follow their agenda. They mustn't think this new stuff going on had any credibility so they created their own mob story to spread around. Again, it was as if the more the politico stated their words, the more the event would diminish. They would prevail.

And they went to great lengths to squelch news of that great event. Especially when hundreds and hundreds of people began to follow. They made up names to call it, they tried to convince people that it was not true. Some people changed their minds. Some did not. Soon, the politicos became so threatened they knew they had to end this once and for all. And so, they bribed someone part of the inner circle to turn in their leader. They arrested him for nothing and treated him like any guilty criminal of the day. They killed him right in front of his followers.

Satisfied that ended that, the politicos went back to their agenda. Smug in their thinking that their wording of the event trumped the event from continuing. The problem with their thinking was that they were humans. Their rationale could not come close to God. Three days after a murder witnessed by crowds, God's Son Jesus appeared alive. First to his core group of 11, and over the next couple weeks to 500 more. They call these people witnesses. Even when others told them they were wrong, they knew the truth. And here we are two thousand years later. People are still challenging His Truth. People are still believing it.

Words cannot take truth away. Truth is truth. Truth prevails. And sadly good people sometimes die in the fight. Better to die for truth that to live for nothing.