Presented to Alberni Valley Ministries of The Salvation Army, 15 November 2020 by Captain Michael Ramsay, Padre Royal Canadian Legion Branch 293
1 Corinthians
11:23-25: “…the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and
when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for
you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after
supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as
you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Remembrance:
Wednesday was Remembrance Day in Canada: a day to remember the ‘great’ and
subsequent wars. As I have been privileged to do many times before, I was
invited to address our community as the Legion Padre. It was very different
this year than past Remembrance Day ceremonies. There were only 50 of us
allowed instead of the typical nearly one thousand and we had to be outside,
masked and social distanced, of course.
Covid-19
has affected every aspect of our lives – separating us from friends and family.
People have not been able to be with loved ones as they passed on from this
life to the next one. People are dying. We hear of outbreaks in different
cities and other places where our family is and we worry and we wonder. Rebecca
is on the mainland working with vulnerable people and so we follow reports
closely. This I think can be a small reminder, a real life object lesson of the
large sense of worry and loss and grief and fear that gripped our world, our
country, our Island and even our Valley here more than 100 years ago and more
than 75 years ago in the world wars. The Second World War ended 75 years ago
this year.
Lest
we Forget. We will remember. Why do we have Remembrance Day? What are we
supposed to remember? We remember the people who served. When World War One
broke out Canada was a country of just over 7 million people. 619 000 Canadians
served in WWI and 66 976 never returned. That was almost 1-out-of-every-5 boys
aged 16-24. There were 1 million Canadians who served and the 45 000 lost their
lives in the Second World War. We are to remember the people who served and the
people who died; why?
We
are to remember this so that we do not repeat it. We are to remember this so
that our children and grandchildren don’t go marching into foreign lands
risking both losing their lives and risking taking someone else’s life.
I
have spoken to veterans who served during D-Day. I remember one fellow when
asked if he ever killed anyone, answered, “I don’t know”. He just ran when they
said “run” and when he was in a trench or a hole he would just fire his gun
without sticking his head up. (Apparently most people just wind up shooting
into the air. We seem to have this instinct not to take life but rather to save
it). I remember hearing stories of this same person ducking in his trench as a
tank passed safely over his head – it was an American tank that almost killed
him.
I
have spoken to veterans, even of our more recent wars, who still have horrible
flashbacks and PTSD directly related to not only what they saw and had done to
them but also from what they have done. I can’t tell you the number of times
people have asked me whether they can be forgiven for what they have done. They
can. There are no good guys and bad guys in the trenches, for the most part,
just people trying to stay alive.
Reinhardt’s
father was a prisoner –of-war in England in WW1. I heard stories from American
veterans of how they were told to bayonet people rather than take them
prisoner. My grandmother’s brother never spoke of what happened the day that he
and his comrades were surrounded by the enemy. War is terrible. War is
terrifying.
If
we forget the horrors of war we are more likely to repeat them.[1]
If hate is stronger than a desire for peace than we will walk down this road
again and again and again... If the population of a country cannot forgive, it
is easy for their politicians to throw their people into a position where they
either kill someone else’s children or they send their own children to be
killed.
This
is important. In the Legion Chaplain’s manual of which I have become quite
familiar over the years are prayers such as this:
O
God our Father, we thank you for those valiant hearts, who at the call of
Sovereign and country laid down their lives for our cause. We pray that we may
uphold the torch entrusted to us. So that their sacrifice may not have been
in vain, unite all the peace loving peoples of our world in one holy purpose to
defend the peace won and the comradery for which these valiant hearts
lived and died. Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with
me. In the Name of the great Prince of peace we pray. Amen.[2]
·
God of peace, may the memory of wars strengthen our efforts
for peace.
·
Father of souls, may the memory of those who died inspire
our service to the living.
·
Builder of the Kingdom of Love, may the memory of past
destruction move us to build for the future.[3]
We
are to remember the horrors of war so that we do not need to repeat them.
Susan,
the girls and I have been reading Exodus lately as a family. In the Bible the
Israelites and Judeans are called frequently to remember the Passover. There is
quite a lot of symbolism – which we won’t look at today – that they are
supposed to return to once a year in remembrance how God kept His promise –
which he made hundreds of years earlier -
to bring His people out of Egypt (Genesis 15).
As
the Israelite families were sitting in their houses awaiting the impending
visit by the Angel of Death, God told Moses that they were never to forget this
day.[4]
They are to remember it forever. God told them, Exodus 12:24-27:
“Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and
your descendants. When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he
promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, ‘What does
this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to
the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our
homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” Then the people bowed down and
worshiped.
They
are supposed to remember this terrible cost. Moses later put Aaron’s staff and
some manna into the Ark of the Covenant with the stone tablets so that people
wouldn’t forget, not only how God brought the people from Egypt but also how He
sustained them in the desert (Hebrews 9:4). But you know what the Israelites
and the Judeans did? Just like we have done with war in many cases – at various
times in their history – they seemed to forget.
The
British Empire, of which Canada was an integral part, instituted Remembrance
Day to remember WW1 but we then added a remembrance of WW2 and subsequently
applied it to our own peacekeeping efforts and continuing military engagements.
Jesus, in the Gospels is shown to open up the Passover (and in 1 Corinthians
possibly even every meal that the saints have together[5])
to not only remember how God, through the Angel of Death and the fire-y pillar
of cloud, delivered His people into the Promised Land; but to also remember how
God through Jesus’ death and resurrection delivered us, His people from our
sins into eternal life.[6]
Jesus
at the Passover Meal uttered the very important words, “Do this in remembrance
of me” (Mark 14:22-25,Luke 22:18-20,1 Corinthians 11:23-25).[7]
This is, I think, a big reason why God wanted the Passover ceremony etched so
deeply in the minds of humanity for so long because just as when the Egyptians
gave up their firstborn sons, God saved His people through the blood of the Passover
lamb; so when God gave up His firstborn son –Jesus Christ – He also saved us;
His people, all His people, He saves through the Blood of the Lamb.[8]
This
is the most important event in the whole history of the world: the death and
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God, through the giving of His only begotten
son has made it – just like with Exodus and the Angel of Death – so that none
of us need to perish but all of us can have Salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is important to remember.
In
the Christian Church we have Good Friday and Easter where we are supposed to
remember how Jesus through his death and resurrection provided for us to be a
part of His Kingdom of Forgiveness and Peace both for now and forever more. And
each Sunday we are supposed to remember Jesus’ resurrection celebrating the
fact that now we can all pass from the darkness of hate, sin, and death into
the light of forgiveness and eternal life. Even during Lent, when some Christians
still fast, did you know that traditionally you are not supposed to fast on
Sundays? It is because Sunday is a feast day! Sundays are a celebration!
Sundays we remember Jesus’ resurrection and our opportunity to be a part of His
Kingdom of Peace!
This
is why we come to church, this is why we go to Bible studies, this is why we
pray and this is why we read our Bibles; this is why we have our Mercy Seat at
the corps and this is why we commemorate Good Friday and Easter Sunday/Monday
every year. That is why we are here today: because just as God offered
salvation to all His children from the passing over of the Angel of Death and
the preceding plagues; so too He offers salvation to all of us, this very day,
from Sin and Death and from everything that is plaguing us.
We
remember our service people on Remembrance Day by wearing poppies and we are
thankful that people loved us so much that they were willing, as called upon,
to lay down their lives for us – as the Chaplain's manual says, not for war but
for Peace.
Today,
a few days after Remembrance Day, and a few days before we enter into the
Advent Season, I implore us to remember not only our service people but also
let us not forget what our Saviour has done for us. Let us not forget how he
delivered us from our sins. Let us not forget – as we said the other week –
that He has declared us to be holy saints and let us not forget that He has
forgiven us so we now have the ability to be released from the power of hate,
sin, and death by forgiving others. Jesus is the Prince of Peace and He lived,
died and rose from the grave so that we can live in Peace with Him, each other,
ourselves, and the whole world forever more.
It
is my hope that if there are any of us who have not yet entered His peace yet
that we will do so today and -that as we do- we will always remember what He
has done for us.
Lest we forget.
Let us pray.
[1] George Santayana, Reason in Common Sense, (The Life of Reason, Vol.
1: 1905). “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
[2] Rev Norman McMillan,
Padre Legion Br 514 Caledonia ON, in Chaplain's Manuel of The Royal Canadian
Legion
[3] Bishop George Appleton, General Editor, The Oxford Book of Prayer, (Oxford, Oxford UP, 1985), p. 367 in Chaplain's Manuel of The Royal Canadian Legion
[4] Thomas W. Mann,
“Passover: The Time of Our Lives.” Interpretation 50, no. 3 (July 1,
1996): 240-250. ATLASerials, Religion Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed June 28,
2012), 241-242: The Passover narrative is arguably the most important section
of the entire book because it is primarily here that the experience of exodus
is communicated not simply as a moment in historical time (in the past) but as
a perennially recurring moment in the present life of those for whom the story
is sacred.
[5] W. Harold Mare, The
Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:1 Corinthians/Exposition of 1
Corinthians/VII. Paul's Answers to Questions Raised by the Church
(7:1-14:40)/C. Worship in the Church (11:2-14:40)/2. The Lord's Supper
(11:17-34), Book Version: 4.0.2
[6] Cf. NT Wright, Paul for
Everyone: 1 Corinthians (Louisville, Kentucky, USA:WJK, 2004), 128 and
Simon J. Kistemaker, 1 Corinthians (NTC: Grad Raoids Michigan: Baker Academic,
2007), 149: 1 Corinthians is probably the oldest record of the observance of
this memorial
[7] cf. J. Paul Sampley,
1 Corinthians, (NIB: Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002), 935 for a
very good discussion of the intentionality of the use of the phrase,' do this
in remembrance of me."
[8] Norman Theiss,
"The Passover Feast of the New Covenant." Interpretation 48,
no. 1 (January 1, 1994): 17-35. ATLASerials, Religion Collection, EBSCOhost
(accessed June 28, 2012), 17: In the eyes of the first three evangelists and
Paul, Jesus construed his last supper with the twelve disciples as the
fulfillment of God's plan to inaugurate a new Passover meal. In this new meal,
Jesus interpreted his death as a new Exodus in which the new people of God were
liberated from all that enslaves them and freed to serve God in holy living.
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