It is Remembrance Sunday and I have been invited to the village of East Grafton to conduct their act of Remembrance. Wherever you are, do pause at 11am to remember those who have served and who continue to serve, and their loved ones also.
It isn’t a day for lots of words, just a few which hold so much meaning.
The names of those who have ‘fallen’ of course, and the unspoken names of their loved ones too. The Kohima Epitaph is so poignant we can’t help but recall it, especially when spoken by an ancient Brigadier or Tommy who has seen action, who has seen their brothers in arms breathe their final breaths, or themselves return home injured. Or perhaps by a child whose parent is currently serving overseas. I have conducted a few of these such in services in 20 years of ordained ministry, and taken part in others beforehand. There are many permutations. The two minute silence and the bugle playing the reveille always strikes a note in my heart.
When you go home
Kohima epitaph
tell them of us and say,
for your tomorrow
we gave our today.
It is one of those services at the heart of the Church (of England)’s year, and yet so often Jesus isn’t even mentioned. Indeed my first year in an incumbent role I received a complaint from the local RBL that I had mentioned Jesus too much, in church, on a Sunday.
I have asked for a Bible passage to be read at the service I am conducting this weekend. Not because I want to detract from the those who lost their lives serving in years gone by, but because remembrance without hope has a hollow ring to it.
I have chosen the well known passage from Ecclesiastes 3, A Time for Everything.
There is a time for everything,
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Interestingly, God isn’t mentioned in this passage despite it being found in the middle of the Bible, and yet God is here. God is here in the good times and the bad, the hopeful and the hopeless, in times of war and times of peace, and that is the message I want to convey on Sunday. No matter what we are going through, we are not alone, God is with us, always has been, always will. It is not God’s role to wave a magic wand and make everything OK, because life is just too complicate for that. What God has always promised us since the beginning of creation is that He will always be with us, always has and always will. God promises to be with us, and invites us to be with Him.
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