LEXINGTON — On April 19, 1775, hours after British Regulars killed eight colonial militia on the Lexington Battle Green in what became known as the Battle of Lexington and sparked the American Revolution, Captain John Parker rallied his men to head to Concord and face the Regulars again. This became known as Parker’s Revenge. But before heading to Concord, the militia heard from Rev. Jonas Clarke, Lexington’s minister.
These were Rev. Clarke’s words, as delivered on Saturday, April 19, 2025, when the Lexington Minute Men reenacted the Battle of Lexington on its 250th anniversary:
“Brothers, Patriots, it was only this morning that eight men lay dead and many others gravely wounded on this very ground. The innocent blood of our brethren makes this soil a hallowed place for future generations. For today, it shall become a fertile field that will yield a rich harvest of freedom.
“As you set forth to right the unspeakable wrongs of this day — to set your bravery against the brutality that was the tyrannical actions of his majesty’s troops — it is important to bear witness to the justice of your cause. Where was the king’s justice? Where was the king’s righteousness?
“The desires and nature of a monarch are made known by the works of his servants, and thus it is clear whether that monarch is deserving of the loyalty and duty of his subjects. What are we to say then, when a band of the king’s troops, those sons of oppression and violence, inflict a murderous volley, not once but many times, upon those who were quitting the field, to let them leave unmolested?
“The lust of domination appears no longer in disguise, but with open face. The liberties and the rights of all Englishmen were by this murderous action set at naught and made a mockery. For why did you and your martyred brethren stand here on the common but a few hours past if not to bear witness by presenting your very bodies, that your liberties, your homes, even your lives were inviolate, even in the face of overwhelming force.
“The king’s troops were the first to fire; that is clear. The first blood spilled was ours, not theirs. Having had our natural and constitutional rights thus abrogated, the source of those rights no longer lies with king and parliament. It lies with us, with America. We are, in truth, Americans. The first to claim the name and the identity that will grow from this place into the outer reaches of the human imagination. To the sacred limits of our immortal souls. Whatever we have been before, we are Americans now.
“Clear it is that maintaining that identity will require a fusion of blood and sacrifice of life. For the events of this morning means conflict, brothers, it means war. Others may have thought it, some may have wished for it, most of us feared it. But we cannot return to the fashion of things that were. Our presence on the common today and our eight martyred brethren who have sanctified this ground, proclaim to the world and mostly to King and Parliament, that Americans are prepared to defend and preserve their liberties and rights — even at the cost of rebellion.
“This, for us, is a journey into the unknown. For we do not know what sacrifices will be required of us or how many months or years of struggle lie before us. But of this we can be sure, beyond doubt, that in the struggle between tyranny and liberty, our God is always the God of liberty. For he is the God who set free his people from slavery in Egypt and into the land of the promise.
“And he fulfilled that promise generations later in the coming of our redeemer Christ, who taught us with his own life that in life and in death and beyond death, that God’s kingdom will triumph. And that the ways of God are not only the ways of righteousness and truth, but of life eternal and our lives right now. Of love that is limitless and divine and sacrificial love like yours. For family, for neighbors, and for country.
“Trust in God that soon or late, victory is certain. His majesty’s troops are fighting far from home for the purpose of keeping the past upon its throne. Whatever lies dear to them lies 3,000 miles at their backs. What is dear to us — family, homes, liberty, our country — lies close at hand. And that is a strength that cannot be measured in numbers. We march from the shadows of the past into the fairlight of the future — and that is freedom. Beyond thrones, beyond kings, beyond tyrants who would invade our communities and destroy our homes and kill our citizens and threaten our families and seek to control our country. Whatever trials lie before us, our end is sure. It is liberty.
“Will history remember our actions, our sacrifice? Will the world learn the lesson of this day: that tyranny will not be tolerated, that injustice will be resisted with courage and commitment, that all people deserve to be free and treated with compassion? That the power of God is on the side of the good, the innocent and the just. Lord, let it be so.
“So it is with high purpose that you walk forward into this day’s battle. You go beyond all that is ordinary, beyond fear of peril, beyond things that were and into things that will be, that must be. So shall you face the foe with courage and faith. So shall you stand on the side of all that is righteous and of good report. So shall you go in God’s keeping and God’s blessing and mine. Amen.”