Remembrance 2022

I don't know if the compilers of the Revised Common Lectionary had that in mind, but it is certainly a happy coincidence that we have a gospel that is so much focused on self-sacrifice on a day like Remembrance Sunday, where we remember all those who have fallen, fighting for freedom.

On Remembrance Sunday, the two parts of my heritage, one being from neutral Sweden (a country that hasn't seen war since 1812) and the other from Norway that was occupied by the Nazis during the second world war, always compete between slight reprehension and heartfelt understanding.

We come together today, not to romanticise war, but to worship almighty God and to give thanks for all of those who have fallen, fighting for the freedom of this country and of many other countries.

Just as we remember Christ's death every Sunday (and indeed in every Mass) "in broken bread and wine outpoured" - we hear, twice in the Eucharistic prayer, "Do this in remembrance of me". As such, remembrance is at the heart of our life as Christians, and today, as we have on the second Sunday of November every year since 1946, we gather to remember more specifically those who fell in the two world wars.

Christ himself knew from the recitation of the Passover narrative each year that telling the story can keep a memory alive and present.

In his institution of the Eucharist, he taught us to remember, time after time, his sharing in OUR earthly suffering, his own personal sacrifice, but also the joyful message of Resurrection which follows the pain.

Elsewhere he taught us, as he went on to demonstrate, that “Greater love has no man, than that he lay down his life for another.”

So, too, today, we re-tell the story of those who, as we have just heard, “laid down their lives in the service of our country and in the cause of peace.”

We remember them, and by remembering them, we keep their memories and stories alive.

But in remembering, we also reflect year after year on the lessons which must be learnt from the cost of past conflict, that we are called by Christ to be peacemakers first and foremost, and to reach out to one another with love, compassion and understanding.

We must recognise within ourselves the lack of love and tolerance which can lead to discord, and seek to replace this with the desire to build bridges and to share the peace of Christ.

Those who have experienced the devastation and anguish of conflict can teach younger generations to strive for a better tomorrow.

We pray today for those who continue to bear arms on behalf of our nation, that they may have both courage and compassion.

We give thanks for all who strive for peace and who fight for justice, in all nations of the world.

This remembrance, this thanksgiving, comes shortly after two other major commemorations in the liturgical year, those of All Saints - where we honour all those holy men and women who have gone before us, living the life of the Gospel, and All Souls, where we remember and give thanks for those loved ones who are no longer with us.

It is perhaps apt that all these days of remembrance and thanksgiving, come so close to the start of the new church year, where we are told so much about the hope of the coming of Christ, and even more so that the liturgical year then takes to the joy of His nativity, and, eventually, to that glorious hope of His Resurrection.

This means that our remembrance does not necessarily have to be one of just sorrow and grief, but one in which we know that there is hope, hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and also the hope that we will, at one point, meet again.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them

In Nomine +

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