What Have I Done?

Bill Hull

CO-FOUNDEr, President, & CEO

THE BONHOEFFER PROJECT

The best way to start reading this column is to watch this short video:

It comes from the great 1957 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, The Bridge on the River Kwai, directed by David Lean. It starred Sir Alec Guinness, William Holden, and Jack Hawkins. Alec Guinness won the Oscar for Best Actor. The story focuses on the battle of will, strength of character, and the power of example. The battle of wills was between the Japanese camp commander, played by Sessue Hayakawa, who was nominated for the Oscar, and Guinness who played Colonel Nicholson. The Japanese have captured the British soldiers and they are to begin work on the bridge over the River Kwai.

The Japanese Colonel is accustomed to getting his way through fear and intimidation. He does not hesitate to execute, starve, beat, and torture prisoners and even his own men if it achieves his goals of maintaining his authority and getting the job done on time. The first confrontation is that under the Geneva Convention officers who are prisoners of war are exempt from manual labor. The British Colonel Nicholson refuses to manual labor and is thrown into solitary confinement. The cell is a metal hut with nothing but water and a bucket. It is Burma and the heat and humidity are nearly unbearable for normal conditions, but deadly for someone confined to a mental hut. Periodically, Nicholson is dragged from his hut to stand before the Japanese Colonel and he is offered incentives, but Nicholson will not compromise.

Meanwhile, the bridge building is too slow, and thanks to the shoddy work of the prisoners, portions of the bridge are literally falling down. The pressure is increasing on the Japanese Colonel; he will be shamed if the bridge is not ready in time. He will look weak if he gives into his British Colonel who is weak and dying in his tin cell. To make matters worse, Colonel Nicholson is admired by his men, but the Japanese Colonel’s men loathe him. Every day of the standoff, the Japanese Colonel becomes more desperate and eventually he is a broken man. He considers suicide, but instead, he gives in and allows British officers to not do manual labor and let’s Colonel Nicholson out of his tin cell.

Then the story takes an interesting turn. Thus far, the viewer of the film admires the British Colonel for he has won the battle of the wills. He is a man of impeccable character, has a will of iron, and is everything a man should be. He builds on that reputation when he takes control of the bridge building and proclaims that they will demonstrate their superiority by showing the Japanese how to build a world class bridge. He allows his officers who are engineers to start over and place the bridge in the correct place and the work begins in earnest. The British Colonel works harder than even the Japanese and continues to drive his men to do great work. Over time, the Japanese Colonel actually submits himself to his British counterpart. As they walk on the finished bridge together, they start talking like friends’ they have both achieved their goals. The Bridge over the River Kwai is complete - it is a magnificent achievement. In a strange way, building the bridge has brought two men at war together- what a way to end the film. If only the world could come together like these two.

But wait, we’re not quite done. Did I mention that William Holden and Jack Hawkins were in the film? William Holden is everything that Colonel Nicholson is not. He plays a soldier who is willing to cut any corner, break any rule, take every pleasure, and avoid suffering and sacrifice like the plague that it is. He had escaped from the very same prison camp where he was quite cynical about Colonel Nicholson and his high and mighty principles. He had made it through the jungle and was wounded. He had made it thorough and now was a patient in a very nice hospital located on the beach. He has himself a cushy life, a beautiful nurse as a girlfriend, and is waiting to be released from the service so he can return home. He lied about being an officer and he was not interested in an assignment offered to him to go back into the jungle.

The assignment blows up the bridge over the River Kwai – to blow up the bridge that could transport troops and prisoners and give the Japanese great strategic advantage in the war. Only Holden knows the way and is familiar with the terrain, but he doesn’t want to go. In the end, the Army tells him they know about his ruse and he actually has no other choice than to return and help blow up the bridge. Jack Hawkins is the officer who will lead the small band of men back to the River Kwai to blow up the bridge. The dynamics of this little rag tag platoon is a great story in itself, but let’s get them to river before I run out of space.

They are able to plant the explosives on the bridge and run the wires to the plungers that are hidden behind rocks about 100 yards from the bridge. The small platoon goes to sleep and waits for dawn when the train arrives. Just at the right time they will push down the plungers that will blow the bridge to smithereens. The morning is fresh and bright, a ribbon cutting ceremony is conducted, and Colonel Nicholson is surveying the bridge one last time before the Japanese dignitaries will arrive on the train.  

The reason the two colonels are now men of mutual respect is that they both feel a sense of partnership in their accomplishment. Colonel Nicholson in particular has fallen in love with his accomplishment; at this point there is nothing he wouldn’t do to protect it. His strength of character, his iron will, and his honor as a man of his word have all driven him to a place where his personal pride in his and his men’s achievement has caused him to lose the big picture. He has been so immersed in his work and getting the job done he has forgotten that he is at war and he has used his substantial gifts to assist his enemy. He has built something wonderful, but it has put him on the wrong side of the war.

Just then the platoon members awaken to a disastrous fact, the waters of the river have receded overnight and the explosive wires connecting the charges to the plunger are now visible. Colonel Nicholson spots it. He is startled by what he sees and is trying to process what it means. He can’t quite believe that someone is actually attempting to destroy his wonderful creation. Who would it be and why? He is compelled to descend from the bridge to the riverbed and he picks up one of the wires that are slightly embedded in the riverbed sand. He pulls on the wire and follows it where it leads. At the same time William Holden, jumps up from behind the protection of the boulders and must beat the Colonel to the plunger - someone needs to blow up the bridge. It is now a race to the plunger between Holden and the Colonel. The Japanese soldiers begin to fire, and they cut down Holden just about the time he reaches the Colonel. They recognize each other from the prison camp, there is mutual hatred, but then the Colonel recognizes his error. His last words are, “What have I done?” He then falls on the plunger, the bridge blows up, and the train falls into the River Kwai.

“What have I done?”

What was the meaning of those words? A question comes up here: who shot the Colonel? Was he shot by a stray Japanese bullet, or was it from the small platoon? Was he cut down by an allied soldier who now saw him as the enemy, a traitor to the mission? He was shot because he was desperately trying to keep the allied soldier from depressing the plunger. He was shot by the allied platoon members because he was working for the other side. His last words were an acknowledgement that his pride in the bridge’s construction had blinded him to his military duty.

What Does This Mean?

Christian leaders have fallen in love with our achievements of building a magnificent ministry or church. Yet, it wasn’t what Christ commanded us to do. This is not a black and white issue; it is some shade of gray. I think we all enter into a project or ministry assignment with a conscious motivation to please God and to help people know God. But being human is a very dangerous thing. We aren’t even qualified to understand our own hearts and motivations. God claims that he alone understands our hearts [Jeremiah 17:9[1]]. We want to know our own hearts; we pray and ask God to show us the truth [Psalm 139:23-24[2]]. In the final analysis, God will do the sorting of the soul [2 Corinthians 5:10[3], 1 Corinthians 3:12-15[4]].

However, I must admit that there have been times, as with Colonel Nicholson, where keeping my creation or achievements alive have caused me to get confused in my mission. My mission is making disciples. Disciples are not robots living in a sterile untroubled world. They are real, imperfect people who struggle with knowing God and believing him, working through the culture in which they live with its challenges and troubles, and helplessly watching their cultural leaders either build or destroy where they live. This has been the story of most humans throughout history. American Christians at least have a vote, but that is of little consolation if you lose. So, it is very important to know your mission.

To make disciples is our mission.

Building ministries or churches or businesses merely comes along with it, but let’s not confuse the two. The only thing that Jesus commissioned and authorized us to do was to introduce people to Christ, teach them to obey everything that Christ commanded, and give them the vison to do the same - the rest of it is optional.

When we come to our end, we won’t have to face the truth with the agonizing lament, “What have done?”

It could be, “Thank God for what I have done.” Exactly what he asked of me.


[1] “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” – Jeremiah 17:9

[2] Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.” – Psalm 139:23-24

[3] “For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.” – 2 Corinthians 5:10

[4] “Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.’ – 1 Corinthians 3:12-15