His Truth is Marching On

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” so beautifully sung by our choir on the Fourth of July, was once a marching song for the Union soldiers of the Civil War. It’s easy to imagine hundreds of troops advancing steadily and purposefully to that rhythmic chorus, “Glooooo-ry, glory halleluuuuu-jah…”

Yet as anyone who’s studied the Civil War knows, there were some very inglorious moments in that conflict. Days, seasons even, when things looked dark and unpromising, when precious lives were sacrificed, it seemed, for nothing. When good men suffered and enslaved men seemed no nearer to freedom than when the war began. In those hard days, mere boys took up the fife or drum and entered the fray - literally. It is said that some of the musical brigades of both the northern and southern armies accompanied their commanding officer right onto the field and played patriotic songs while the bullets and cannonballs – and comrades - fell around them.

What would it have felt like to be blasting out “His truth is marching on” when progress had ground to a halt or the troops were even falling back, giving ground to the enemy? To finish the last notes of the last chorus and fall silent on a battlefield strewn with fallen friends? Was His truth still marching on? Many surely asked those words as the years dragged on and the war waxed and waned. Many others had their lives snuffed out before they ever saw the fulfillment of what they’d given their lives for.

Same with us. There’s a Truth that’s been marching since the Creation, and when we read our Bibles we see that it marches right off the pages of Revelation into eternity. This Truth wins in the end. And all who sacrifice their lives – give their time and energy here on earth for its cause – are resurrected to share in the victory at the end. What they didn’t see accomplished here because they had to leave “early,” they will see and enjoy in their heavenly home. And all injustice and unrighteousness will be past.

In the meantime, a trumpet has been sounded that shall never call retreat. His Truth is marching on. So let us play our little fifes and drums for all they’re worth, because the cause is worthy, and the Commander is worthy, and the outcome is sure. There may be days of darkness and death and the years of conflict may drag on, but we’re to keep playing while the bullets fly and the cannonballs explode around us. To keep playing while the wounded groan and the agnostics curse. To keep playing, even when we see the whites of the enemies’ eyes… because His Truth is marching on and, as one little-known verse of the song declares,

“He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.”

Glory, glory hallelujah!