Tuesday, April 1: A Private’s Letter
Written by Hungsu Lim, Pastor, St. John’s United Methodist Church, Buena Vista, VA
After the Korean War, Korea became one of the few countries to maintain a mandatory draft in the post-war era. The responsibility of defending the nation has largely fallen on young men’s shoulders. They are typically drafted between the ages of 19 and 35, and you can choose when to enter the service within this age range. I decided to join the Korean Army when I was 23, during my college years.
I thought I was old enough to understand the world, but looking back, I was too young. I still remember the day my family and I visited an Army training center. We made it a family trip, exploring the town and enjoying a nice breakfast together.
However, when I was about to enter the center for the 6-week basic training, I was nervous. I still vividly remember how my parents and my brother greeted me with heartfelt words at the gate of the center. I saw my mother with tears in her eyes, and my heart broke.
At the time, I was listening to a song called “A Letter of a Private,” which expresses the feelings of a young man on his way to the training center. One of the lines sings, “Everything, from a blade of grass to the face of a friend, seems different. My youthful life, it is beginning again now.”
Since I was facing something completely new, I started to see things differently. Like the line in the song says, everything seemed different to me. Part of the reason was the anxiety and fear of uncertainty that came with facing a new reality. I struggled with the thought that anything could happen during my service.
This feeling of unease overshadowed my first few months in the army. Life there was different, and somehow, it was overwhelming and difficult to adjust to. The strict hierarchical order was foreign to me. I saw many things as inefficient and even unreasonable. The song captures this unsettled experience that young men face in the military.
However, I also felt that this song resonates with the truthfulness of Christian identity. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to step into uncertainty and the unknown, just as Jesus calls us to be witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).
The word “witness” comes from the Greek word “martus” (μάρτυς), which originally referred to a legal witness—someone with knowledge who could testify in a court of law. Over time, the word also came to refer to those who gave their lives for their testimony, as many of the apostles did.
Being a witness for Jesus could mean sacrifice, even martyrdom. There is a correlation between witness and martyrdom because the world often rejects the message of hope and justice found in the good news of Jesus Christ. So, being a witness is about more than just words—it’s about living a life that reflects the love and justice of God.
Jesus commissioned his disciples to go into the world and proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God. I believe this identity gives us a new perspective that helps us see things differently. We begin to see people with God’s eyes, hear their voices with God’s ears, welcome them with God’s heart, and recognize each of them as God’s created image. We are called to go to our Jerusalem, then to our Judea and Samaria—where we don’t want to go—and eventually to the ends of the earth, beyond our own ego and self-centeredness, through the love of Jesus.
Lent invites us to enter a space and time where we can encounter things and people with God’s eyes, ears, and heart. It is a spiritual journey we embark on for forty days as Christians, followers of Jesus, and his disciples.
I learned a lot from my military experience and grew in understanding of a bigger world. I believe we all grow in Christ’s love as we are called to be “A Letter from Christ” (2 Cor. 3:3). Let us be the hands and feet of God so we can become a sign of God’s kingdom for the world.
