Remembrance Sunday 14th November 2010

Would the children please come to the front as I’ve got some things to show them?

We’re about remembering this morning.

On my desk I’ve got a little list to help me remember things I’ve got to do. Some times I do this to remember knot hankie. Other times I use some of these show yellow 'post-it' notes and stick them somewhere to help me remember.

Today is Remembrance Sunday when we remember all those people who died in the World Wars. Just as the little yellow note is a visual reminder of the things we need to do, the poppy is our visual reminder to remember those sad times.

In the early part of the 20th century, the fields of France and Belgium were filled with red poppies. The flowers grew in the same fields where many soldiers lost their lives fighting in World War I.

John McCrae was a Canadian surgeon in the First World War. He wrote poetry and produced a famous poem called "In Flanders Fields". The day before he wrote this one of John's closest friends was killed and buried in a grave decorated with only a simple wooden cross. Wild poppies were already blooming between the crosses that marked the graves of those who were killed in battle.

"In Flanders Fields" was first published in December, 1915 in England's "Punch" magazine. Within months it became the most popular poem about the First World War. Many people felt the poem symbolised the sacrifices made by all those who participated in World War I.

David Shankland reads:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Today we also remember that out of that sadness and terrible events there must be a longing for peace and that we should ALL work to make everyone's lives peaceful.

We can also remember the other sign mentioned in the poem. That of the cross. It reminds us that Jesus loves us so much he died for us. It reminds us of the victory of Jesus over death because Jesus is alive today, and he gives his life to people today.

I have a very special cross – here it is.

It was given me thirty years ago by a miner's widow.

During the First World War, her father, a British Soldier fought in one of the trenches in the Somme surviving 4 years of World War between 1914 and 1918 to return to his native Yorkshire. He took with him a spent brass shell case from the trench of the Somme. In his spare time he took that case and moulded it into a crucifix, an image of the Cross of Jesus.

Years later his daughter gave me that crucifix when I visited her in her old age in Doncaster.

Here it is. A cross made from a shell to show God's love.

A cross made from a weapon of destruction to hold Jesus our crucified Saviour.

I keep it on my desk to remind me of Jesus as One who can turn the raw material of our lives with all its pain and sorrow into a thing of beauty, just as the brass shell became this crucifix.

Through the cross of Jesus we know God has overcome the worst things in the world that can ever come against us – sin, fear, doubt, disease, even death – all these powers are overcome.

Jesus, the Son of God, has been through the darkest valley so I know that there is nothing God and I together cannot overcome in this world or the next.

So on Remembrance Sunday we’re asking God to give help to the living and rest to the departed, peace to the earth and heavenly life to men and women.

There are few more concise and beautiful prayers than the one carved on the outside wall of Westminster Abbey which I have copied onto the back page of our service sheet.

May God grant to the living grace, to the departed rest, to the church and the world peace and concord and to us sinners eternal life.

As we move now into prayer I want us all to say that prayer together but first I invite the cubs to lead us. Let’s keep quiet for a moment.
Reader 1 Walk among us Jesus
Reader 2 and be with soldiers and peacemakers.
Reader 1 Walk among us Jesus
Reader 2 And be with the hungry in their need.
Reader 1 Walk among us Jesus
Reader 2 And be with the frightened and lonely.
Reader 1 Help us see them,
Reader 2 Hear them
Reader 1 And in their darkness make us part of your light.
Reader 2 Amen.
Let’s all join together in the Westminster Abbey prayer:
May God grant to the living grace, to the departed rest, to the church and the world peace and concord and to us sinners eternal life. Amen.