Micah 4:1-8
Matthew 5:1-12
Reflection
For many of us Remembrance Sunday is a time of looking back to the past, of remembering those who gave their lives in war, believing that the sacrifice they offered was for the greater good.
Here in Accrington there are constant and appropriate reminders of those young men called the Accrington Pals: in the name of the health centre, in the name of a café in the market and in other places in the town. Quite rightly we remember the sacrifice of those brave young men and we mourn their loss.
As a Minister I have, of course, preached before on Remembrance Sunday, and yet my mind goes back to my childhood and three particular memories related to this day.
My first memory is of the very first time I went to the Act of Remembrance at the War Memorial in Poulton Le Fylde. I was eight years old and had just joined the Cub Scouts. In those days cubs had to wear grey shorts as a part of the uniform. We had to march from our church to the War Memorial, about the same distance as from here to Accrington Cemetery, on a bitterly cold and windy day. My legs were covered in goose bumps and I was shivering. As we marched along I heard a little old lady in the crowd watching us march by say, “Isn’t it nice to see little boys in short trousers.” We’re in church and I’m a Minister so I can’t repeat the thoughts that went through my mind at that moment!
My second memory is of being a little older and asking my granddad why he never went to the War Memorial on Remembrance Sunday. He had fought in the Second World War and for part of the war was in charge of one of the big guns in the desert. In all the time I had known him he had never talked about the war and I’d found out what he’d done from my grandma. When I asked him the question he was quiet for a long time and then he said that he didn’t go because he just wanted to forget about the war, that he found thinking again about the friends he’d lost and the people he’d killed too painful. He understood why others took part in the Act of Remembrance, but he just didn’t want to.
My third memory is of a school history trip to Belgium to visit some of the sites and museums associated with the First World War. I have many memories of that trip, but my abiding memory is visiting one of the WW1 cemeteries and seeing row upon row of simple white headstones, each one representing the life of a man who was brave enough to lay down his life for the freedom of others. Standing amongst those graves, even as a fifteen year old, gave me a profound respect for the bravery of those who gave their lives in war and an absolute conviction that war is a terrible, terrible thing and that we, the human race, must do all we can to ensure that we have peace in our world and that war, any war, becomes a thing of the past.
As a child I naively thought that wars were something that belonged in the past; that surely human beings were now too civilised to even think that war could ever be an answer. Then along came the Falklands War and the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan and so many other conflicts. I now wonder sometimes if it is even possible for human beings to share a planet without going to war with each other.
I wonder that as a human being with all my doubts and fears and yet when I turn to the word of God in Scripture I know that there will indeed come a time when human beings will be able to live together in perfect peace. I know it as surely as I know anything, because the word of God is true and our faithful God can be completely relied upon to do all He has said He will do.
In our Old Testament reading the prophet Micah looks forward to the future, to a time when God will rule the world from Jerusalem. It looks forward to a time when there will be no more war, when, as he poetically writes, “they will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” This will be a time when “nation will not take up sword against nation nor will they train for war anymore.” There will no longer be any need for war and conflict because God will “judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.”
Micah 4:4 gives us a lovely vision of that peace; telling us “every man will sit under his own vine, his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid.”
We know this to be true because Micah tells us, “the Lord Almighty has spoken.” God only speaks truth. If God tells us it will happen then it will happen. The word of God is a cast iron guarantee that we should never, ever doubt.
This vision in Micah, given to the prophet by God himself, is a vision of the future, of the time predicted when Jesus will return, when heaven and earth will be united, and God will live with his. This will be an eternity of peace and blessing and war will be forever ended.
This is the eternity described at the end of the Book of Revelation. In chapter 21 we read, “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
“There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.” This is God’s promise for our future. There will be no more war because “no more death or mourning or crying or pain”.
God’s promise to us for the future when God renews heaven and earth. No more war. Everlasting peace! God has promised it. It will happen
But what about the time in between now and the promised future of peace to come? How are we to react as Christians to conflicts in the present age?
In our Gospel passage we read that Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” It is important for us to notice that Jesus said ‘peacemakers’ and not ‘peace lovers’. A peace lover is somebody who will do all they can to maintain the peace and will even allow a dangerous and threatening situation to develop because they do not want to take any action. Peace makers are those who face situations of conflict and war, whether in personal relationships or between nations; and do all they can to take the action the situation demands.
Peace makers can be soldiers and sailors and airmen. I am sure that my Granddad would have much rather been at home in Poulton Le Fylde than firing that big gun in the Sahara desert. He joined the army and went because he believed that the only way there could be a peaceful world at that time was by fighting to oppose the Axis powers. The Accrington Pals and all those men whose bodies lie under those white headstones in Belgium went to fight in the trenches not because they loved war but because they loved peace and wanted to fight for the restoration of a peace that had been taken from them.
Peace makers are called ‘children of God’ because they are joining in with the mission of Jesus. At the heart of all human conflict is sin, a selfish desire to have what we want without putting the needs of others before our own. Jesus came to our world to show us the ugliness of sin and the beauty of a life of love that is lived in worship of God and service to others. Jesus knew what it was to be a peacemaker because he came to bring peace between human beings and God and gave his own life on the cross to bring that peace. When we act as peacemakers, even at the cost of our own life, we are faithfully following Jesus’ example.
There are still wars in our world today. There is civil war in Syria and other armed conflicts all over our world. It is right that we hope for a world where war is no more, it is a Christian hope and it is the will of God expressed in scripture. At the same time it is right that we remember this day with thankfulness those who have given their lives, both those in the military and civilians, that we might enjoy the relative peace we have now until that time comes when we will live in the peace of God forever.
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