St John the Baptist Church, Mount Bures

Six Parishes Sermon of the week

Every night, in the town of Ypres (ee-press) in Belgium, a crowd gathers at 8 O’clock beneath the Menin Gate to observe the ceremony of the Last Post. It is a simple yet profoundly moving tribute to all those who gave their lives during the First World War. The location could hardly be more fitting, the beautiful town of Ypres having been reduced to rubble during that conflict but lovingly restored afterwards, stone for stone. More powerful still, on the Menin Gate, in the heart of the town, are inscribed the names of the thousands of soldiers killed in the Ypres Salient and with no known grave. There can surely be few more graphic reminders of the awful cost of war. The following poem, reminds us again of those who died and why we remember.

It was March

It was March when we visited Ypres,

Just a few weeks short of the spring,

The flowers were starting to open, the birds beginning to sing

Outside, in fertile lowlands, the grass grew lush and green,

No sign now of the carnage which once these fields had seen.

And in the busy centre, a constant hum of sound

As a milling throng of people pursued their daily round.

Few hints here of the horrors that racked this charming place,

Mock medieval splendour and pleasant open space.

But as the sunlight faded and night began to fall,

A little crowd assembled beside the city wall.

In different moods they stood there, some laughing, some in tears,

Some talking of the weather, some hiding inner fears.

But all at once fell silent as the clock came round to eight,

And a poignant tribute sounded beneath the Menin Gate.

Another sad reminder, another fond farewell;

A proud and thankful blessing, a heart-rending death knell.

And as the bugles faded till their sound was heard no more,

We saw then all too clearly the dreadful face of war.

Instead of names around us there were young men in their prime,

A tragic generation cut down before their time.

Our hearts were there beside them, we stood knee deep in mud,

And shared the awful horror of field’s dyed red with blood.

We heard their cries of anguish, we felt their searing pain,

And we understood more clearly this must never be again.

Yet the battle is not over, though the war may be long past,

The fighting may have halted but the cause is only masked.

Unless we come together, until we learn to share,

Until we love more widely and think in ways more fair;

Until we build so bravely that all we say and do

Gives our hope of breaking barriers some chance of coming true

Then the Last Post may be sounded in the future just the same,

But the thousands who it heralds will all have died in vain.

The prophet Isaiah talks about terrible times of war, but then he brings an amazing vision of peace which we heard in our bible reading this morning:

‘He, meaning God, will judge between the nations and settle disputes for many people, They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.’

More that 2700 years later and we are still waiting

Well might we echo the words of a U2 song

‘Heaven on earth – we need it now, I’m sick of all this hanging around, sick of sorrow, sick of pain, sick of hearing again and again, that there’s gonna be peace on earth.’

We cry - How long Lord, must we keep hearing the prophecy of peace? When will it come?

Of course ultimate peace and justice and joy will come only at the end of time in the kingdom of God, which we heard about in our reading from Revelation, with a vision of a new heaven and new earth, a place where there is no more pain, and no more suffering, where God himself, will wipe away every tear from our eyes. But that doesn’t mean that we just sit and wait – it is never too soon to start cultivating the oasis of peace in the desert of our war mongering world.

In the words of Mahatma Ghandi

‘Peace is not something that you wish for. It is something that you make, something that you do, something that you are, something that you give away.’

And if we really want to honour those who died in war, we can do no better than by building a more peaceful loving world for their children and ours. Isaiah’s vision may not be fully realised but we can do what we can.

If you look up peace in the dictionary, you will generally find there are negative and positive elements to peace. Peace, in the sense of Remembrance day, is the cessation of hostile acts. That is the negative side of peace. When we say that peace has been achieved, we mean that the warring factions have stopped fighting. But you can stop fighting and still not have peace; we just have to look to North and South Korea to understand that reality.

The positive side of peace is the breaking down of the barriers to allow for full reconciliation and restoration. It is the presence of serenity, brought about by a new appreciation and respect, through submission to a higher ideal and a supreme authority. For the Christian, that is the headship of Christ in our lives and in the church.

As you came into church today, you may have been given a zip, or be near enough to someone else who was given one, so you can perhaps share a zip.

In order for there to be real peace there needs to be reconciliation, and so let us for a moment, use the zip as an example of what reconciliation is.

As you hold the zip in your hand, if you have closed it, open it up again, so the two sides are separated and spend some time looking at the two sides of the zip, separated and apart.

When people argue and fight, they get separated from each other, they are not together anymore just like the zips in our hands.

As we look around the world, or even closer to home, we can see examples of nations, of people who are like our zips, separated, apart.

And that often makes us very sad.

Well, zips are clever things, because zips bring two sides back together again. Reconciliation … means bringing two sides together.

Why don’t you slowly pull the zip closed using the zipper … and as you do, look at how the two sides come together again.

And perhaps you might want to say a quiet prayer for anyone you know who might want to bring back together again, it might be in individual relationships, or bigger, international relationships.

As I draw to a close, let us hear again the last verse of the poem I read at the beginning,