Rushmere Baptist Church Remembrance

We remember for the sake of TRUTH

We remember for the sake of LIFE

We remember for the sake of PEACE

“When war is declared truth is the first casualty”

Wars are never bloodless

It is God who is the ultimate power who sustains the world, in love and suffering and life-giving patience with his creation.

On this day too we remember for the sake of LIFE. Life is sacred because it is a gift from God.

It is, in reality, much more about feeling, about being affected in your guts by the lot that has been dealt to others – and holding them before God, who, we believe, also feels a gut-wrenching pain at human suffering.

We should remember. And in remembering repent in pain and in sackcloth and ashes that war is ever necessary.

And we also remember for the sake of PEACE. The absence of war is not peace and there is no true peace where injustice prevails.

There is a rightful duty to prevent acts of terror being carried out. We recognise that the presence of evil in our world draws us all into its orbit at times so that even in seeking the good we may end up using very undesirable methods ourselves.

We may recognise that it is the aggression of others that is a very significant part of this conflict. But we come also with a recognition that war has no place in the kingdom of Christ.

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love

No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.”