Remembrance 2025 - Micah 4.1-3, John 15.13

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3 years, 8 months, and 16 days. As of today, 9th Nov, that’s how long it’s been since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Many here in Burghead — including some in our congregation — have been deeply involved in supporting, housing, and caring for our Ukrainian friends during that time. Some Ukrainian friends are here today.

Since 2022, I’ve listened most weekdays to a podcast called SLIDE Ukraine: The Latest. It gives daily updates on the battlefield, politics, and the human cost of the war. Most movingly, it sometimes includes interviews with Ukrainian civilians, soldiers, and politicians - those who are living through it all, on the ground, on the frontline. It gives civilians like me just a glimpse of the true horror of war.

Anyone who has even HALF a sense of the horror of war, longs for peace.

That brings us to our first heading today:

1. Longing for Peace

It’s deeply moving to hear interview with Ukrainians who bravely fight on but are exhausted, grief-stricken, and longing for peace. Not peace at any cost — not peace without justice or one that will soon collapse back into conflict — but a lasting peace. Our Ukrainian friends LONG for that… and as we look on at the horrors of war we should long for it too, and we should pray for that and we should work for it too, if we are able. After all, Jesus said…

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Matthew 5:9 NIV

9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

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Many of you understand that true horror of war more fully than I ever will. Some have served in the armed forces or seen combat. Others have lost loved ones or friends in war. For you, today’s remembrance isn’t just about general respect — for you it’s personal. And even for those who haven’t served, the brutal cost of war fills our screens daily.

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I think back to school days. I wasn’t a particularly diligent student of poetry, but one piece from the Great War stayed with me — Siegfried Sassoon’s poem Attack:

At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun In the wild purple of the glow’ring sun, ... Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire. Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear... And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, Flounders in mud.

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That’s our cry, isn’t it? When we consider the horrors of war - O Jesus, make it stop. War is sometimes necessary in our fallen world, and we should be profoundly grateful for those who serve. But don’t we long for the day when we’ll need no armies, navies, or air forces? Don’t we long for peace?

But here’s the question - Will Jesus ever make it stop?

And what does Jesus - What does God’s Word (the Bible) say on a day like this?

The words Alex read earlier from Micah 4 were spoken to people who also lived amid corruption, violence, and suffering. Yet into that world, God gave them — and us — a promise of hope.

remember, verse 1…

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Micah 4:1 NIV

1 In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it.

A day is coming, says God, when the nations will be united — a true United Nations — not through politics or power, but in seeking and obeying God.

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Micah 4:2 NIV

2 Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

That’s the world we long for — where people live rightly and justly.

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Micah 4:3 NIV

3 He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.

So often, in our world, “might is right.” The strong act as they please. But not so in God’s future kingdom. There, he will rule with perfect justice — the powerful will no longer prevail simply because they can.

And all of this leads to one of the Bible’s most beautiful visions:

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Micah 4:3 NIV

3 …They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.

Those words are carved into a statue outside the United Nations building — a man beating a sword into a plough. That is the world we all want. But the UN, for all its importance, cannot bring it about.

Micah speaks of a future marked by: SLIDE Global unity… Godliness of conduct… Genuine justice… and the Giving up of war.

Yet right now, we are still very much—

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2. Living with War

For much of my lifetime, people believed humanity was progressing toward peace — that war was behind us. How naïve that looks now. We have conflict in Europe again. conflict barely abated in the Middle East again, in Yemen war goes on…

There are more than 35 active conflicts today in Africa alone.

And remember: more people were killed in wars during the last century than in all previous centuries combined.

But here’s the even more uncomfortable truth….

The problem of conflict isn’t just out there. It’s in here — in our homes, our marriages, our communities. Human hearts are fractured; relationships broken.

Jesus’ words in our second reading stand in stark contrast:

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John 15:12 NIV

12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

We were made by a loving God for loving relationships - most of all we were made to live in loving and obedient relationship with God himself.

Yet we find ourselves at war — we’re at war with each other (ultimately) because we’re at war with God. Why?

The Bible’s answer is uncomfortable but clear: the heart of the problem is the problem of the human heart.

We were made to live under God’s loving rule, but we’ve all chosen rebellion — my life, my way, my rules. That rebellion is what the Bible calls sin.

Sin is not just a mistake; it’s treason against the rightful King of the universe.

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This is SLIDE Pierre Laval, once a respected French politician. When Nazi Germany invaded France, Laval collaborated with the occupiers, he was a key influence in Vichy France… sending thousands — including Jewish families — to concentration camps. After the war, he was tried, convicted and executed for treason. He was a treasonous rebel - a traitor to his country.

But here’s the shocking claim of Scripture: we too are traitors. Not against any human government, but against God himself. We’re at war with each other because we’re at war with him.

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So — what can be done? How can rebels like us ever enter that coming kingdom of peace?

That’s our third and final point.

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3. Looking for Hope

The people of Micah’s day lived in a world as corrupt and chaotic as ours. Yet God spoke a promise of peace — and a way for sinful people to be part of it.

But that peace wouldn’t come by God ignoring sin. A truly just world can’t be built on injustice swept under the carpet. If sin and rebellion are punished, then all of us stand guilty.

We need a rescuer — someone greater than ourselves.

And Micah goes on to describe him:

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Micah 5:2 NIV

2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Those words sound familiar because we hear them each Christmas. They point us to Jesus — the Saviour King born in Bethlehem. He came to deal with our greatest problem: our sin, our rebellion, our conflict.

Now listen again to the words of Jesus we heard read earlier:

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John 15:13 NIV

13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

RIFF - These words are spoken at Remembrance services across the nation. But most people misunderstand them / Lossie High ILL.

They rightly remind us of those who gave their lives for others. Yet when Jesus spoke them, he wasn’t talking about soldiers — he was talking about himself.

“Greater love has no one than me,” he was saying. “I am about to lay down my life for my friends.”

Here’s the heart of the Christian faith,,,, the good news we all desperately need to hear.

The penalty for our treason against God is death. But God, in his love, came himself — in Jesus — to bear that penalty in our place.

Let me tell you another story.

SLIDE Lieutenant John Robert Fox was a 29-year-old artillery officer in Italy during World War II. When German forces overran his position, he radioed in for artillery fire — on his own location. His commander protested, “But Fox, you’re in the village!” Fox replied, “Fire it. There’s more of them than us.” The shells fell; Fox was killed. But his action stalled the enemy and saved countless comrades.

He took the fire so others might live.

That is what Jesus did — but on an eternal scale. At the cross, Jesus stepped into the line of fire, bearing the judgment we deserved so that we might be forgiven and live.

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John 15:13 NIV

13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Three days later he rose again, conquering death. And now he invites each of us to share in his forgiveness and the peace of his coming kingdom — a kingdom where there will be no more war, no more tears, and no more need to remember the fallen in grief.

But that peace isn’t automatic. A place in God’s kingdom is NOT ours by default. We must come to Jesus in repentance — turning from sin — and in faith, trusting in his death for our forgiveness.

Will you do that?

And as we do, Jesus begins to change us. Reconnected to God, we learn to love one another — forming his new community, the church.

Today is a day to remember — with gratitude — those who gave their lives in war. But even more, Jesus calls us to remember him:

Greater love has no one than Jesus, who laid down his life for his friends.

Will you be one of his friends?

Let’s pray