Today’s sermon:

It is 90 years since the end of the First World War. We are here at the 11th hour of the Sunday closest to the 11th day of the 11th month, when all those years ago the guns fell silent for the last time in the War that was meant to end all wars; the war that was supposed to change the world because it had been so costly that we could never allow it to happen again.  But of course it didn’t and just a few years later the Second World War began.  So many wars.  So much death and destruction.

But the memories fade with the passing of those who witnessed those terrible times.  We seem not to learn.

There are only a very few men who served in the British Forces in The Great War still alive.  The youngest is 106 years old.  Their comrades have long since passed and they will soon follow and there will be no one left to tell us how it really was on the fields of Passchendaele where a million men died and 2 million were injured.

It seems a strange contradiction, to fight for peace.  I’m sure that applying violence to resolve a problem is not what we are called to do but yet there seems little option sometimes.  Throughout the Old Testament the Israelites called on God in times of war.  They carried the Ark of the Covenant before them into battle.  It seems that things may have changed little as leaders from around the world claim God for their side.