Grief and hope at empty tombs

Here's my sermon for this year's Remembrance service at Broughton:

Last Thursday, the Cubs, Scouts and Explorers came to church to think about Remembrance Sunday and created these poppies to decorate the church with for today. We thought about the two minutes silence and how, for some people, in the first minute we recall those who have died in the two world wars, and whose names we hear read out, and in the second minute we think of all those affected by war, through injury, bereavement or loss of homes and livelihoods.

So on these poppies we wrote on the top half a name of someone from Broughton who died in the two world wars, and then on the bottom half people that we pray for during the service, either because they are suffering because of war or because they are trying to make peace. So thank you to the Cubs, Scouts and Explorers for helping us to remember the purpose of Remembrance Sunday – to remember and to pray.

Of course, this two minutes silence happens at our poignant War Memorial: with our soldier deep in thought, remembering his friends who have died and holding in his hand a laurel leaf for peace. Remembering and praying.

There are many war memorials throughout the country – from simple plaques to huge monuments but almost all of them have one thing in common – they are technically cenotaphs. A cenotaph is a monument to someone who has died and whose body is buried elsewhere and I learnt recently that the word 'cenotaph' comes from two Greek words meaning 'empty tomb'. So these cenotaphs are not graves but memorials.

This reminds us that so many of those who went to war never came back, for most not even their bodies came back and for some the location of their bodies is unknown. In the absence of a proper grave, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier represents all those whose bodies never returned, and all our local cenotaphs are testament to the absence in all senses of the word of those who never returned from war.

We gather at an empty tomb to remember those who should be here but aren't. And as we feel the pain of the empty tomb we commit ourselves to praying for all those who suffer because of war and violence, and all those who are working for peace and justice.

But we don't just gather at the cenotaph, we also gather here in church, where the words 'empty tomb' have a different resonance.

In our first reading (Acts 13:26-39) we hear the words of the apostle Paul telling people in a synagogue about Jesus. He tells them that Jesus was unfairly tried and unjustly put to death, but that he was raised from the dead, and that unlike his ancestor, the great King David, his body did not decay. Instead there was an empty tomb. And because of that empty tomb Paul could say for certain that Jesus' death is the way sins can be forgiven, as Jesus himself had said it would. And it's those sins of course which lead to war and violence. Therefore, Paul goes on, everyone who believes and trusts in Jesus is set free from their sins, something that is simply not possible through being a good person doing good things.

That empty tomb is the central belief of Christianity – if it is untrue, as Paul says elsewhere, then our faith is pointless, but if it is true it should change every part of our lives. If Jesus has not been raised to life again then all graves are empty tombs – they all mark people who no longer exist except as dust and ashes and memories – merely names carved on stone. If Jesus has not been raised all grief is without hope – we will never see those we love again. But if Jesus has been raised from the dead then those who believe and trust in him will share eternal life together.

To stand at the empty tomb of Jesus is to celebrate that death is no longer the final word in our lives either personally or as a world. In our second reading (Luke 21:5-19) Jesus teaches his disciples that after his death and resurrection he will return to his Father for a while before he returns to earth again at the end of time. In the meantime there will be suffering, wars and disasters, and his followers will be persecuted. His promise is that those who remain faithful will receive eternal life. But when he returns death and suffering, along with war and disaster, will be got rid of once and for all and justice will be done. Without that empty tomb, death, suffering, wars and disasters will continue, and evil will go unpunished.

So as we gather around the cenotaph, the empty tomb, let us remember those who died and pray for those who suffer and who work for peace. But let us also remember that it is only by gathering by faith around the empty tomb of Jesus that there is the certain hope of an end to injustice, suffering, wars and death.

Longing for a better world

Here's my sermon for this year's Remembrance Service at Broughton, the readings were Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and Micah 4:1-5:

Last year we marked the hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War, a war which put an end to the Victorian and Edwardian idea that human history was a march of progress with the world getting a better place as time went on. This year, we mark the 80th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, a war that put an end to the idea that wars are the way to solve humanity's problems.

Just over twenty years after the conclusion of the so-called 'War to end all wars', the sons and grandsons of the Great War veterans went off to fight on European soil again, and in one way or another, our armed forces have been on active duty somewhere ever since.  The writer of the Bible book Ecclesiastes said that there is a time for war and a time for peace – although we see precious little of the time for peace.

He is writing about what he sees in the world around him, and part of his message is that we can endure the bad things that happen, because they will pass.  However, there is a larger message in his book that is greater than this Stoical, stiff-upper-lip, almost fatalistic, view.  And that is that these are things that happen 'under the heavens', meaning that these things happen on earth.  He goes on to say that if our life on earth is the only life we have then every event and action, good and bad, is meaningless, and we should therefore just eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.

But the writer says that God has put eternity in our hearts, he has given us all a deep sense that there is more to life than this life, and therefore we cannot be satisfied by looking at the world this way.  We all have a desire in us for the things of heaven, whether that's justice, or peace, or safety, or joy, or love.  We want an end to all those bad things that the writer of Ecclesiastes lists.  We want an end to death, to killing, to destruction.  We want an end to weeping and to mourning.  We want an end to hate, and an end to war.

But how can this happen?  The Second World War proved that war is not the solution.  So how can there be a time when nation will not take up sword against nation, where everyone can live in peace?  The prophet Micah tells us that if we want the benefits of heaven we need to turn to the God of heaven: “He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”

However, we cannot do this on our own.  Humanity is incapable of making itself perfect.  The First World War taught us that.  We need help from God.  The final book of the Bible, Revelation, gives us a great picture of what the new, redeemed and restored world will look like when everyone walks God's way: “God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

An estimated 19 million people died in the First World War, and an estimated 85 million in the Second World War.  Both wars were fought to bring justice and peace, to make the world a better place.  But it took only one death to make that heaven-on-earth possible, and that one death was Jesus'.  Jesus declared that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no-one comes to the Father except through him.  He declared that he would lay down his life so that we may have life and have it to the full.

So if you long for a world where there is no more death or killing, mourning or pain; if you want a world of justice and peace, joy and love; if you want the kind of world those in the World Wars fought for; then come to Jesus: he will teach us his ways, so we may walk in his paths, now and for ever. Amen.

How to end all wars

Here's this month's magazine article:

On Sunday, 4^th August 1918, the fourth anniversary of the declaration of war, King George V and Queen Mary joined members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords for a special service at the Church of Saint Margaret, Westminster. The King had asked that 4^th August 1918 should be observed as a National Day of Prayer: 100 days later the war ended.

This year we commemorate the centenary of the end of World War I and our remembrance is particularly poignant as we consider how we have failed all those who died or whose lives were affected by the war. In Peter Capaldi's final episode in Doctor Who, a WWI soldier gets lifted out of time and the Doctor says that he is a WWI soldier to which he replies “Yes, but what do you mean, 'one'?”

For those who fought or suffered in the Great War, the only thing that made the hardship and slaughter bearable was the belief that it was the 'war to end all wars', as H.G. Wells wrote in 1914 “This, the greatest of all wars, is not just another war—it is the last war!” They were told that their sacrifices would make the world a better place, indeed in the new world there would be no war. The reality of the trenches probably put paid to the idealism of the first few months of the war, but it probably also confirmed in them the horror of war that we find in the war poems of that time.

We have failed those all those who died or whose lives were affected by the war because we have failed to learn that war cannot end war; that violence only leads to violence. And if this seems to be an inevitable vicious cycle, that's because it is – at least humanly speaking. The root cause of violence and war is our sinful nature. All human beings are pre-disposed to evil and this affects us individually and collectively. The worse news is that we cannot put this right ourselves, but the good news is that if we truly repent of our sins, God will forgive us and give us his Holy Spirit so that we can live as his children.

And like our sin, this salvation affects us individually and collectively. One of the prayers for Remembrance Sunday is “Almighty Father, whose will is to restore all things in your beloved Son, the King of all: govern the hearts and minds of those in authority, and bring the families of the nations, divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin, to be subject to his just and gentle rule.” It reminds us that we are divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin, and that the only remedy is the just and gentle rule of Jesus, the King of all. Jesus died so that we can be forgiven; he rose from the dead to give us new life; and he will come again to rule over all things.

If we really want to see an end to all war, we need to follow the example of George V: come before God in repentance and with prayers for help; for ourselves, for our nation and for the world.

Check out Glen Scrivener's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=StuOWU4b1to

Dressing up evil

Here's my article for October:

A question that quite often gets asked is “Why is there so much evil in the world?”  As we approach the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War we again focus on the horror of war and “man's inhumanity to man”.  But there is also plenty in the news today that makes us despair about the prevalence of evil in the world.

There is, however, an irony in those who despair about the amount of evil in the world but at the same time take part in Halloween events.  Because despite its 'fun' and 'playful' image, Halloween is in essence a celebration of evil.  In fact it is even more dangerous because it makes evil seem to be fun and playful, and children get rewarded with sweets for being evil. This might seem a bit of a stretch make a link between dressing up as a vampire and acts of atrocity, but the normalising, minimising and rewarding of evil means that we become immune to the seriousness of evil.  If the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, this is true whether the direction is right or wrong!

Now that isn't to say that all those who dress up in Halloween costumes are evil or will commit evil acts, it is merely saying that we need to be careful what we celebrate, encourage and reward, especially in children, because that could set a precedent for future undesirable behaviour.  An example of this might be those who mark Halloween as 'Mischief Night' – a time for pranks such as egging or acts of vandalism.  If you can dress as a devil 'for fun' why can't you act as a devil 'for fun'?  Why is one praised and the other condemned?  Why is one promoted on social media and the other moaned about on that same social media?

The answer would be that it is a matter of moral boundaries, but that raises the question of where those moral boundaries should be set.  Once evil in whatever form is acceptable, when does it become unacceptable?  This then becomes a matter of personal interpretation: what one person calls 'being scary for fun' another might call terrorisation.

In the Christian worldview this confusion is exactly what the “spiritual forces of evil” (Ephesians 6:12) want.  The prophet Isaiah warned “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20).  The devil is the 'father of lies' (John 8:44) who masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14) – a bad thing pretending to be good.  By tricking us into thinking that evil is 'just playing' and 'a bit of fun' he sows moral confusion and gets a foothold in our lives.  In the baptism service, after the parents and godparents have said that they reject the devil and all rebellion against God and renounce the deceit and corruption of evil, we exhort the child to “fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ against sin, the world and the devil.”  But they cannot not fight this battle alone; so we ask God to deliver them from the powers of darkness, restore in them the image of his glory, and lead them in the light and obedience of Christ.  Paul reminds us in Ephesians 5:8 “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.”

What we still need to learn from the Battle of the Somme

Here's my sermon from this year's Remembrance Service at Hibaldstow (the reading was Luke 21:5-19):

Jesus said “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” words that are as true now as when he first spoke them, indeed they seem to have been true for the whole of human history. But out of all the many wars that this world has seen, what was it about the First World War that has left such a permanent mark on our psyche and collective memory? Why is it that it is this war that spawned and indeed is still the focus of Remembrance Sunday?

It seems to me that the answer may have something to do with the Battle of the Somme, the centenary of which has been commemorated this year. The Somme features many of the common images of the First World War: trenches, mud, barbed wire, machine guns and so on. But it also highlights some of the themes of the war: industrialised mass slaughter; tiny gains at a massive cost; conscripted young men, promised glory but sent to their deaths by old commanding officers. By the end of the four and a half months of the offensive, the Allies gained 12km of ground at an estimated cost of 620,000 casualties (420,000 British, 200,000 French). The Germans lost around 500,000 men.

The Battle of the Somme also seems to represent another feature of the First World War that has made it so outstanding, and that is that it was the end of the idea of human progress, that humanity is getting better and better, that the world is improving. What the First World War demonstrated was that history wasn't inevitably improving, because so many civilised nations ended up fighting each other - the only progress that was made was our ability to kill more people, more efficiently.

The destruction of the view of the inevitable progress of humanity has had bad consequences for us all. Since then, without the feeling that we're working for a better world, we've become self-centred, out to get the best for ourselves no matter what it takes and no matter who suffers as a consequence. With no hope for the future we become people who live only for the present.

Remembrance Sunday is a day to recall the consequences of war, not just in terms of the people who died, who were injured or who lost loved ones, but also in terms of its effect on us as a society. More importantly, remembering the past must lead to learning from it, otherwise our remembrance is pointless.

We no longer share the naïve optimism of the Victorians and Edwardians that humanity is marching to a glorious future by its own efforts. But that shouldn't mean we should only think about the present and what we can get out of it for ourselves. The First World War reminds us that we have an almost limitless ability to be cruel to each other especially when we believe we are in the right. Our present time reminds us that we will do almost anything if it makes us happy, regardless of its effect on others.

There is a hope for the future but it lies outside of humanity. Yes we should do all we can to make this world a better, more peaceful place, but ultimately only God will bring a lasting kingdom of true justice and peace. Jesus came to announce the coming of that kingdom, but he also came to die so that those self-important and self-centred desires can be forgiven and changed. And he promised that one day he will return to make all things new and those who believe in him will share in that glorious future.