Remembrance Day Address 2024 (Romans 5:7-10 and Isaiah 11:6)

Presented to the Alberni Valley community at the Community Remembrance Day Ceremonies at the Glenwood Centre by Major Michael Ramsay, Padre, Royal Canadian Legion Branch 293, on 11 November 2024

 

August 4^th,1914 Canada, as part of the British Empire joined World War One. Four years later, when the fighting ceased on November 11^th, 1918, there were 888,246 Commonwealth soldiers who never returned home – over 18% of them, 160 000, were Canadian, Newfoundland, and First Nations soldiers.

 

Then from September 10^th, 1939, until August 14^th, 1945; 1,159,000 Canadian, Newfoundland and First Nations service people served in World War 2 and when the war was over, a further 44,090 Canadian, Newfoundland and First Nations service people had laid down their lives.

 

Robert (Robin) Watson was just 14 years-old when he joined the Army. On Thursday, at the Field of Honour. we held a memorial service for him; he was 96 years old. He was, I believe, the Valley’s last surviving Word War II veteran.

 

Many people marched out of the Valley to serve God, King, and Country in the first world war, the second world war and the conflicts that followed. In past years here I have shared many of their stories.

 

Today I would like to add to those stories, remembrances of George (Bud) Hamilton, James George, Eduard Clutesi and others. They were among the Nuu-Chah-Nulth soldiers who left the Valley here offering their lives for us, our ancestors, our descendants, our families, our friends and our allies.

 

George, 'Bud' Hamilton, as he was known, was the youngest boy in his family. He was a young Hupacasath man. He was a residential school survivor. Even so, he volunteered to serve with the Canadian forces during the second world war. He was a bright and resourceful young man. On his tests before entering the military, it is recorded that he was above average intelligence.

Letters he wrote home, to his dad Clifford, still exist. He wrote about how he applied to transfer to the navy. He wrote about how he looked forward to going fishing with his dad when he returned home from the war.

 

Bud Hamilton landed at Juno beach with the Canadian Forces on June 6th, 1944. Canadian forces on that day alone suffered 1,096 casualties, 381 of whom were killed in action. By the end of the Battle of Normandy, Canadian casualties exceeded 18,700. George, Bud Hamilton experienced all these horrors and Bud Hamilton survived to fight another day. But then...

 

as fighting continued into Belgium, in one particular small town, an enemy artillery shell exploded very near to him; it severed his spinal cord, and he slowly succumbed to his injuries.

 

He would never go fishing with his dad again.

 

Bud had a daughter whom he never knew. She was born after he died. I understand that she is living today in Idaho with a large family of her own - whom Bud never met.

 

There is also James Goerge. He was the son of Cecil George (George Hamiliton's brother). James was his only child. James survived the war; James made it back and with the money he made, he bought a commercial fishing boat.

One night he tied his fishing boat at a sandbar near where the orange bridge is today. There was an explosion, and he died in his boat that he bought with his pay from serving in the war.

 

I have mentioned Eduard Clutesi before, hereditary chief of the Tseshaht First Nation. [Josh Goodwill, I believe, sits as heredity chief in this seat today.] I will now share a little more of Eduard Clutesi’s story as I have come to understand it.

 

Eduard Clutesi was of superior intelligence, his military tests showed. He was a genius. He taught himself to play violin. He could draw your portrait perfectly. He was very quiet. He did not say much.

 

He served with a mortar unit. This was precise work. It involved intricate mathematical calculations. He served well. He was killed with his mortar unit in the battle of Caen and he was buried with his military comrades in Europe. He never did return.

 

Our First Nations, in many cases, were forced to renounce their status, in order to be enfranchised – until as late as 1960. Yet many, I am told saw the greater good and thus served and found true friendship with their Canadian Comrades and many died for us. Thank you. Thank every veteran who lived fought and in some cased died for us.

 

This week as well as laying to rest a veteran who signed up to serve in the war as a 14-year-old child, I also got news that my sister’s only child passed away suddenly at 22 years of age and it dawned on me that of the 200 000 soldiers who died fighting with the Canadian forces in the World Wars, the majority of them were children – no older than my niece. Canada’s youngest soldier was 10 years old.

 

Our service people, our family members who fought and died; their parents never saw their 22-year-old children, their 26-year-old children, their 17 or there 12-year-old children again.

 

The veterans who served and survived those wars weren’t in their 90s then, like they are now, if they are still around. Mostly, they were children in their 20s or even younger.

 

Our service people who died for us and the veterans who lived and saw them die. Please let us remember them.

 

And in remembrance of those who made the supreme sacrifice, Let us be better men and women, and give us peace in our time.

Lest we forget.

 

We will remember them.

FOR ALL HAVE SINNED: Romans 3:23

Presented to TSA AV Ministries, 10 November 2024, by Major Michael Ramsay. Based on a chapter in his book, Salvogesis’ Guidebook to Romans Road and sermons presented to Swift Current Corps, 12 July 2009 and Warehouse 614 in Toronto, 21 January 2018

 

To view the earlier sermons, click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/07/romans-322b-23there-is-no-difference.html 

To read ‘Salvogesis’, click here: http://www.sheepspeak.com/ebooks.htm  

 

Romans 3:23:For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

There is a Disney movie entitled The Emperor’s New Groove. In it, some people try to kill the emperor with a magic potion but they get it mixed up and accidentally turn him into a lama instead. As the movie progresses, the emperor attempts to regain his throne and turn back into a person.

There is one clip at the climax of the movie where the emperor finds many bottles of magic potions without labels, all of them mixed up. While the royal guards, who are trying to kill him, are in hot pursuit the lama-as-king hurriedly drinks one potion after another, trying to turn back into a person.  Some potions are betterl than others. One turns him into a turtle (not so good for eluding pursuers). Another turns him into a small bird. Frantically he downs potion after potion: turtle, small bird, giant whale, and then finally he drinks one potion and looks down as he changes and cheers, “Yay! I’m a lama again! . . . Oh wait!” That isn’t what he wanted at all: he still is not a person. In the end all those potions and adventures make no difference

The conclusion of the second chapter of Romans, which we looked at the other week, makes clear that there is no difference when it comes to our salvation: both the Jew and the Gentile stand on equal footing. The Law cannot be the means of Salvation. The Law merely points out sin (Romans 3:20, 2:17-24, 5:20, 7:7-25). For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So, what is sin?

The Greek word for “sinned” in this passage, hamartanō, carries with it the classic definition of sin that we have heard before: that of “missing the mark.” An archer aims and shoots and the arrow falls short, missing the target.

On the surface this seems innocuous enough but if we find out that that archer is William Tell – famous for shooting apples off people’s heads – and if we learn that the apple is about to be placed on our own heads, all of a sudden this becomes important! You do not want him to miss the mark!

William Tell was to shoot the apples off the heads of his own sons and the consequence of his missing the mark was devastating for both father and son. When we continually sin, the consequences can be fatal. Romans 3 tells us that we have all sinned, fallen short of this Glory of God, and the first 2 chapters of Romans tell us that because of this we may be at considerable risk.

In a story by John Phillips, he tells us:

Paul describes sin as a coming short of the divine standard. Two men went to the recruiting office in London to join the guards regiment. The standard height for a guardsman was a minimum of six feet. One man was taller than the other, but when they were measured officially both were disqualified. The shorter of the two measured only five feet seven inches and was far too short; his companion measured five feet eleven and a half inches and, stretch to his utmost, as he did, he could not make it any more. Nor did his pleas avail. It mattered nothing that his father was a guardsman, that he promised to be a good soldier, that he had already memorized the drills and knew the army regulations by heart. He was short of the standard.[1]

Yes, the taller of the two was taller than his friend (just as some people may seem nicer, better, holier than the rest of us) but in the end it didn’t matter. He still wasn’t tall enough and there was nothing he could do about that. He could not make himself grow any bigger. Thus he failed to obtain his goal. Likewise, it doesn’t matter if we are Jew or Gentile, male or female, employer or employee, a missionary, a relatively good person, or what-have you . . . for we have all sinned and so all fall short (Galatians 3:28).

We can approach this text in different ways. It could be speaking about each of us falling short and missing the mark on our own accord; that happens. Every one of us has transgressed the will of God. This passage might refer simply to the First Sin when Adam and Eve originally disobeyed YHWH in the garden and then tried to hide from Him (Genesis 3): this was St. Augustine’s idea of “Original Sin.”

Biblical scholar N.T. Wright tells us that here the verb “tense is aorist, indicating a single moment . . . [thus] Paul seems to be again thinking of Adam”[3] But F. F. Bruce, argues that Paul also could be referring to the fact that each of us on our own has sinned and therefore failed to make the grade.[2]

Speaking of making the grade: When I was in high school, a fellow student, John, was in my Algebra 11 class. On the last day of Algebra 11 the teacher decided to read out everyone’s mark in descending order from top to bottom. Now this made John very happy because even though he received only 11 percent, he looked over at a friend’s paper and saw just 4 percent marked on it. For once, John’s was not the lowest mark in the class. As the names were read down the list, and all the way down past the failing marks. . . John was getting more and more excited because this time he was not going to have the lowest mark. Silvia 22 percent, John 11 percent . . . and then the moment he was waiting for - and . . . The teacher stopped reading out the marks and dismissed the class. As everyone rushed out of the room, “What about Mike?” John yelled. “What about Mike? Read out Mike’s mark!” The teacher had shown me grace with my meagre 4 percent. He refused to read my mark out loud so poor John, who did manage to fail Algebra 11 again, wound up being at the bottom of the list again. 

Now there are a couple of things to be cleared up here: 

1) In the grand scheme of things it really didn’t matter for John what mark I, or anyone else, earned; John still earned a failing grade. He missed the mark; he had failed to obtain the prize. Just like us. It doesn’t matter if you are a better person than Charlie Manson, Adolf Hitler, Abraham Lincoln, or your next-door neighbour – that is not what is going to “get you into heaven” as they say for “all have sinned and fallen short.” It is not our actions that win us eternal life; it is God’s gift that saves us. Anyone who repents – preceding list included - and accepts Christ may actually be with the Lord.

2) I, who earned 4 percent in the course, passed Algebra 11 in Summer School with an ‘A’ and later went on to actually tutor Algebra 11. I did not actually fail Algebra 11. I did earn 4 percent on the course. But because I realized that I was doing so horribly in Algebra, I had dropped the course and audited it instead. So I had to do all the same homework as everyone else and I wrote all the same tests; and, yes, I fell short just as John did. However, by auditing the course I was spared the failing mark on my report card.

We can each be spared a failing mark even though all of us have sinned and thus failed to obtain a passing mark on our own. In the heavenly classroom, we all score less than a passing mark; we have all fallen short and deserve to fail. But Jesus does not read our marks aloud nor does He condemn us (John 3:17). Like a student auditing a course, He still wants us to carry on and complete it (1 Corinthians 9:24, Galatians 5:7, 2 Timothy 4:7, Hebrews 21:1)! In my case, there was no difference in how the class was passed, whether in the regular school year or summer school. What mattered was that I passed the class; so my 4-percent mark was erased forever from my transcripts and replaced with a mark in the ‘A’ range.

Such is the Biblical idea of justification.  In his work The Shape of Justification N. T. Wright writes, “Justification” is thus the declaration of God, the just judge, that someone is

(a) in the right, that their sins are forgiven, and

(b) a true member of the covenant family, the people belonging to Abraham.

 That is how the word works in Paul’s writings. It doesn't describe how people get in to God’s family; it declares that they are in. That may seem a small distinction, but in understanding what Paul is saying it is vital.[4]

We know that “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22b-23), and we also know that we “are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). This is good news. Once you take into account that no one knows enough to actually pass the test and merit salvation, then we really do appreciate this grace. Grace is “a gift from God.” It is a present. It is not an award or trophy we can earn like the Grey Cup, the Stanley Cup, the World Cup, or the Super Bowl. Grace is far more precious than those.

It is a special present from Our Father. It is like the gifts I make for my children and family at Christmas time and birthdays. It is the special gifts my kids have made for me. Our salvation is a love present, a special gift from God that He gives us because He loves us.

Now God loves the world so much that He did send his only begotten son to die so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. He sent His son into the world to save the world, not to condemn the world (John 3:1617). and since He did all that at such a great personal expense, let us please accept that gift today and let us not be ashamed of this good news (Romans 1:1617). May we let all our friends and family know that the Lord our God loves us all.

He has purchased this special gift of salvation for every one of us; let us each accept that love present, that gift of eternal life today. As we accept this supreme gift, our lives will never be the same again. They will change forever, for yes, we have all sinned and fallen short of the grace of God but, Praise the Lord, because our Eternal Life, our Salvation, is a free gift of God.

Let us pray