October 25 | Moments Almanac | Few

Welcome to Moments Almanac for October 25th. There are moments in history when the odds are against you. The enemy is stronger, the resources are fewer, and the sensible thing to do would be to run. But sometimes in those moments, someone stands up and says something that changes everything. Not because the words make danger disappear, but because they remind everyone why we're standing there in the first place. On October 25th, 1415, an English king led an exhausted army into one of the most famous battles in history, and nearly two centuries later, William Shakespeare gave that king one of the greatest speeches ever written. Our story begins in northern France. The year was 1415. King Henry V of England had led his army across the English Channel. His men had endured sickness, hunger, and a grueling march, and now, near a little village called Agincourt, they find themselves facing a formidable French army. The English are badly outnumbered, although historians still debate the exact numbers. They are tired, they are far from home, and tomorrow is no longer an abstract idea. Tomorrow is something they may never see. The battle takes place on October twenty fifth, Saint Crispin's Day. And in Shakespeare's telling, one of Henry's noblemen wishes they had more soldiers, more men, more soldiers, more help. A perfectly reasonable respect considering the circumstances, but Henry sees things differently. And what follows is one of the most extraordinary speeches in English literature. He begins by saying he wouldn't want another man, not even one, because the fewer who share the danger, the greater the honor of standing together. And then he says something remarkable. He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart, his passport shall be made, and crowns for a convoy put into his purse. In other words, if you don't want to be here, you can go home. No shame, no punishment, will even give you money for the journey. Now that sounds strangely familiar to anyone who has read the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy chapter 20, God gave Israel instructions for going into battle, and among those instructions was this if any man was afraid or faint hearted, he could return home. In Judges chapter seven, Gideon faced an enormous Midianite army, and God told him to send the fearful soldiers home. Twenty two thousand left, ten thousand remained. And then God reduced the army even further, until only three hundred were left. Three hundred against an army that seemed beyond counting. Why? Because God wanted Israel to understand that victory wasn't ultimately a matter of numbers. Now we can't say that Shakespeare was deliberately drawing from Gideon's story, but the resemblance is striking. Sometimes courage isn't about how many people stand beside you, it's about knowing why you're standing. And then Shakespeare's Henry speaks the words that would echo across centuries We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood for me shall be my brother. There it is, the heart of the speech. Not a promise of safety, not a guarantee that everyone's gonna turn out all right, but a declaration of belonging. We're brothers. And what happens to one of us matters to all of us. The king is telling his men that something greater than rank or privilege binds us together, the shared willingness to face danger, to face sacrifice, to stand, and then he looks beyond the battle, beyond the blood, beyond the uncertainty of that October morning. He imagines the survivors years later, old men sitting at their tables, remembering the day they stood together. He that outlives this day and comes safe home will stand a tiptoe when the day is named and rouse him at the name of Crispian. What an amazing image, an old soldier rising to his toes when someone mentions the day, suddenly he's young again. He remembers the faces, the fear, the friends who stood beside him in the moment when he could have turned away but he didn't. Then comes the final flourish, and gentlemen of England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks that fought with us on Saint Crispin's Day. Now Shakespeare is writing a patriotic battle speech, not a sermon. And the church should never confuse military conquest with the mission of Christ, but there is something in those words that reaches beyond the battle filled into my soul, because the Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. Jesus didn't gather twelve isolated individuals and send them off one by one to build their own little kingdoms. He called them together, a brotherhood. He made them a community, a fellowship, a family. And the New Testament repeatedly reminds us that we belong to one another. Paul wrote this: carry one another's burdens in this way. You will fulfill the law of Christ. That's not a call to solitary heroism. It's a call to shared faithfulness. And I've noticed something over the years when people look back on the hardest seasons of their life, they rarely talk about the difficulty. They talk about the people, the friend who showed up, the church member who sat beside them, the person who prayed with them when they couldn't find the words, the brother or sister who refused to let them face the darkness alone. And sometimes, years later, those become the stories we tell. Not because we enjoyed the suffering, but because we discovered something precious in the middle of it. We belong to one another. And on October 25th, 1415, King Henry V won a remarkable victory at Agincourt. But the words most remembered weren't spoken on that battlefield. They were written by a playwright almost 200 years later, and perhaps that's that story tells us something about the power of story. A battle ends, kingdoms rise and fall, generations come and go, but the longing to belong, to stand with one another, to know that we are not alone, that that never goes away. And in the church, that longing finds a beautiful answer. We aren't merely people who believe the same things. We are people who belong to the same Savior, and because we belong to Him, we belong to one another, and so when the hard days come, and they will. May we be the kind of people who stand together, who carry the burdens, who refuse to abandon one another, and who someday look back, not with pride on our own bravery, but with gratitude for the grace that carries us through we few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters too. Shakespeare, after all, was writing for a rather different audience. Well, that's scattered moments for today, October 25th. I hope you'll join me tomorrow. And until then, take heart, notice the scattered moments, and share the grace.