A remembrance day reflection
No fellowship between light and darkness
There is no fellowship between light and darkness.
The channel is narrow between the shifting sands and sweeping tides.
The day of evil, it somehow finds a way back in.
‘’No greater love has this, than to lay down one’s life for a friend.’’ We can hear this famous quote from Christ 100 times, it doesn’t matter, what matters is, do the words recognise us?
Every year the veterans of World War II get fewer and fewer. Like the last gasp of autumn light, for their brothers in arms, they hang on. Those hands of youth, that once gripped to the hour with every ounce of strength and endurance, with focus and precision and sacrificial love, shake in the wind as they reach out to touch the stone that bares the names of their fallen friends.
They seem distant now, their voices rev hard, it takes concentration and effort to even speak. The world they knew is faceless now. A flood of white noise rushes in. Just the faces of their friends remain in focus, etched in memory, still young and radiant, as ageless as the word.
A quote from the famous poem by John McCrae, ‘’We are the dead, short days ago. We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow. Loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders fields.’’
This year we had a viral clip break out from the TV show Good Morning Britain, 100-year-old Alec Penstone, who served during the D Day landings said this: ‘’Rows and rows of white stones, my friends who gave their lives- for what? The country of today, no, I’m sorry the sacrifice wasn’t worth the result.’’
The reactions from the TV presenters show the gulf in relationship between an old solider and the establishment, between two generations that share the same street but live worlds way.
We had our family holiday in Normandy during Autumn half term this year and visited Omaha beach. The cemetery opposite the sand has 9387 American grave stones.
‘’Dead soldiers buried beneath those stones,’’ I told my children aged 7, 5 and 3, we have a 4-month-old too, the best behaved of the lot one should add, who was asleep in the pram. ‘No running or shouting,’ I told the children. The instruction lasted 2 minutes. The long green corridors of cut grass too much. I spent my time shepherding and herding the shrews, like a bouncer might to a drunk horde. We couldn’t stay long. There was no link between a dead solider and a white stone, not in the mind of a young child. It was like pointing to the sea and saying in a gruff raised voice, ‘’sailors buried down there.’’ Why was I expecting a solemn reaction? My kids as engaged with chasing down the autumn leaves in the cemetery as they are on a beach collecting shells and crabs. They ran beside the white crosses without batting an eyelid.
What does it mean to remember?
Our politicians stand like statues in their smart black suits looking positively bereaved on remembrance Sunday, so very sad, but it only seems to last a morning.
The country they lead divided, the demographic that gets conscripted to fight, British male aged 18-30, gas lit in the media, side-lined, often mis labelled as far right. The Jews, frightened in Britain, many of them returning back to Israel for safety reasons.
Deluded and spoilt are voices that undermine our Christian heritage, like that fat kid who knows not the cost of the butter, or the hour the baker woke, to make his or her cake.
There are many a military man from my generation who have seen sparks of action flying low, out from those great fires of conflict. It was a different animal back then. The whole nation was locked in behind the sword in World War II, if they failed the country perished simple as that. The feet of the nation set in the grass, frozen like pillars of bronze. For years they were shelled, they waited to strike, the sword hungry for action. Such was the hour, there were suicides, not from anxiety like in today’s time, but because some men weren’t deemed fit enough to fight, their ticket over to Normandy withheld. That strike froze in time the flower of a generation. They bled and died in a blaze of adrenaline, in a desperate battle to reclaim a land so defiled by spiritual darkness.
The last verse of John McCrae’s poem goes like this:
‘’take up our quarrel with the foe, to you from failing hands we throw, the torch be yours to hold it high, if ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow, in Flanders fields.’’
In answer to my question, what does it mean to remember? Well, the poem answers the question. To remember is to take up the torch and enter the fray, to enter the battle. For the Christian, not engaged in a world war, this is most certainly not a battle of flesh and blood, but a spiritual battle.
‘’For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
The gospel of Mathew reads like this:
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to turn
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.’’
With an establishment that sits on the shoulders of worldly power like Medusa’s ugly head, the battle is here and that battle is now. The battle never stopped. All the woke mind virus has to do is stare at a punter for long enough, all the punter has to do is stare back longingly, ask for guidance, just engage in familiar conversation for long enough without confronting the lies, nod at the phrase ‘’climate emergency’’ or raise a banner and march along behind the chant ‘’from the river to the sea,’’ and boom! another heart starts to get dark and quick.
There is a corridor between the tides, a road where one generation sees another and understands, where true remembrance walks, where the solider is recognised, where the fear of God reins in wisdom and hope.
A corridor between the graves of those bound in shame as agents of darkness and those who live seeking and wanting the light.
The corridor is not peace, it is not appeasement, it is true love. A love that flows from the heart of God. To love God with all one’s soul and with all one’s strength is the greatest commandment. The pilgrim on this road is a killer and destroyer, not of people, not of flesh and blood but of idols and demonic strongholds. Through the power of Christ. That is what it means to love God with all your heart, it means turning from the contamination of the world, go read about Josiah in the book of Kings if you don’t believe me. The pilgrim has to cut away the contamination, unplug the distraction, and combat the lies of the world with the word of God. ‘‘To love one’s enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’’ This is a command. This is a love that will rescue a brother, a love that will not accept even a sandal strap from the powers of darkness. Not even a boot strap from the kings of pride, from the rulers of Sodden and Gomorrah. This is a love which will expose the darkness, which works and meets down in the dust of the valley floor, reconciled and blessed in the heat of the day, by the body and blood of Jesus Christ, who laid down his life, who left the grandeur and the sanctuary of heaven and who entered the storm. It was a rescue mission then. It is a rescue mission now. It has always been a rescue mission. Just as Lot got rescued by Abraham. Lot who picked the easy ground, who pitched his tents with the wicked. So it is now through the victory of Jesus. His children plundered back from the brokenness. They were the treasure all along, not the riches of the world but the treasure of a lost soul found in the arms of Jesus. Freed beneath the enemies ugly face. Christ frees those held captive in the darkness. He did it then, with the faith of Abraham a foreshadow of his work on the cross, and he does it now with the power of his spirit, the Holy Ghost, who reins as Lord in the heart of his people.
Over and out.