Lest we forget
Dear Friends,
Remembrance Sunday is especially poignant this year as it falls on the hundredth anniversary of Armistice Day when in 1918, at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns fell silent and peace returned as the fighting of the First World War came to an end. Many of us can only imagine what it might have been like to live through such terrible times. In this we are greatly helped by books, films and documentaries. We are rightly told to remember these things ‘lest we forget.’
Remembering and peace are both great Christian themes, and they are wonderfully brought together in Ephesians 2 where Paul urges his Christian friends in Ephesus to remember that they were once outsiders to the things of God. But now that has all changed, because Christ has made peace, not only between them and God but also between them and one another. Christ’s “purpose was to create in himself one new humanity … thus making peace” (verse 15).
So Christians, of all people, should be people of remembrance and peace: remembering the peace won for us at such great cost; living at peace with all people as far as it depends on us; looking eagerly and waiting patiently for the final and eternal peace to come when Christ returns; proclaiming this peace to a restless world that longs for peace but knows not where to find it.
Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord,
Your friend and brother,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister/Vicar)