Remembrance 2011

Sunday, 20 November 2011 07:01

Why Remember?

Sermon preached in Ellon Parish Church

The week before last I visited Anne Frank's House in Amsterdam. It's a house made famous because of a diary written by a teenage Anne Frank. In it she tells of her day to day life. It's full of the usual things you might find in the writings of a girl of that age.. Except that the last years of her diary were written in a small room in which she was confined, in a hidden annexe at the top of a house, with her family. Ann was a Jew. This was the 1940s and the Nazi occupiers of Holland were rounding up the Jews and deporting them to places like Auschwitz and Belsen and Birchenau. Peering cautiously through her window one day she witnessed fellow Jews being arrested and roughly treated and forced into a covered truck. She wrote in her dairy of her guilt that she was safe but also wrote,

'Not being able to go outside upsets me more than I can say, and I'm terrified our hiding place will be discovered and that we'll be shot.'

Its hard to imagine, but actually being in the same house, the same room in which she wrote those words, helped bring it home.

There were lots of people, of all ages, going round the house. It was itself an act of remembrance. Many of the visitors were teenagers, the same age as Anne, with the same emotions and interests. And although its not cool to show you are upset I could tell by their eyes that they were deeply moved. And by their spontaneous silence.

That put me in mind of another visit several years ago, this time to northern France, to visit some of the Commonwealth War Cemeteries. One day we visited one known as Tyne Cot - so called because of the massive number of young men, many no more than boys, who are remembered there. It was especially moving for me because these soldiers were the same age as our son was then. This was also an Act of Remembrance, a moment of silence. At that moment however a coach pulled up and out of it streamed dozens of naturally exuberant teenagers. The peace was about to be shattered. Or so we thought. We were wrong. Many of them were carrying small posies of flowers and as they came through the gates a silence descended as small groups or individuals made their way to particular grave stones.

Tyne Cot commemorates the sacrifices of the First World War. Anne Frank wrote her diary during the second world war. But wars and conflicts still go on and men, women and children are still dying before their time. We have all seen on TV the pictures of young service personnel returning, injured or dead, from Afghanistan. They too are remembered today.

There are many causes of war but greed and fear and poverty and exploitation and intolerant ideologies all play their part and, yes, misplaced religious zeal too .

The challenge as we remember this morning is that our remembering does not trap us in the past but inspires us to think hard about the future and the things that are worth fighting for.

Perhaps above all else is the right and freedom to develop as a full human being regardless of race, gender, physical or mental ability or age. The protection of this God given right might indeed sometimes necessitate physical or even armed struggle, some times in other ways. There's a well known saying that evil triumphs when good people do nothing. Jesus said 'blessed are the peace makers' for peace doesn't just happen. We do indeed look forward to the time when swords will be turned into ploughshares and nation will no longer make war on nation, but that is in God's timing. The Christian faith teaches that true peace comes when all fully follow Jesus and allow his Holy Spirit to begin to work in them and through them.

We might not be expecting to take to take up literal arms in the struggle against evil. But there are many things that need changing for the better in this world. And beginning with ourselves, and those around us, we can make a difference. "Not my will be done, but yours", prayed Jesus to God, in the Garden of Gethsemane before he made His great sacrifice. We may not go so far but sometimes it does hurt to stand up for what is right.

Later in our service we shall have an act of commitment when we promise to do all that is within our reach to contribute to a better world. Our service is one of remembrance but we remember for a reason and we use those memories to direct us in the future.

So I conclude this talk by reading to you a poem. It was read by the mother of a young man of the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland who was shot in Afghanistan. It speaks for itself. Its speaks to me. I hope it speaks to you.

You can stand and shed tears that these heroes are gone,

or you can smile because they have lived.

You can close your eyes and pray they will come back,

or you can open your eyes and see all they have left behind.

Your heart can be empty because you cannot see them,

or it can be full of love and friendship once shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live in yesterday,

or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember those heroes and only that they are gone,

or you can do what they would have wanted -

smile, open your eyes, love and live on.