We will remember them

From the Manse...

On Sunday 12th November, across this land as churches and communities we will gather and be silent.

As we do so, we will remember all those who died in war – those who made the ultimate sacrifice, those who never came home, those who never returned to their loved ones. Young and old together, we will remember them.

All who gather at these special services and events will bring their own memories to mind. There will be those present who fought through the days of the Second World War; those who have been on active service since as well as those who will have returned from their most recent tour of duty.

Alongside them will be ones who lived through those dark and terrible days, working for the war effort at home, always anxious in case a telegram should be delivered to their home with the news that their loved ones were either dead, missing in action or held prisoner of war.
Others too young to have lived through those days will recall the stories, names and faces from their own family history and pause and remember.

We remember the words of Jesus from John's Gospel where he says, "The greatest love a person can have for his friends is to give his life for them" (15:13)

Behind the endless lists of names that are to be found on cairns, cenotaphs, cemeteries and memorials around our country are countless stories of courage and bravery, of self-sacrifice and heroism, of those giving their lives for others.

We remember so as not to forget; to be faithful to those who gave their lives and to work tirelessly for peace and a better world.
So in this month of remembrance and remembering, let us commit ourselves anew to work for peace in this, God's world, even as we take time to remember.

We could do no better than to use these words of Geoffrey Anketell Studdert- Kennedy, lovingly and fondly known by the soldiers to whom in ministered in the trenches, as "Woodbine Willie"
"To give and give, and give again,
What God hath given thee;
To spend thyself nor count the cost;
To serve right gloriously
The God Who gave all worlds that are,
And all that are to be."

With love and God Bless,

Keith