Jesus Our Peace (Remembrance Day Sermon 2013)

Ephesians 2.13-18 and John 16.28-33

On 28th June 1914, a Bosnian Serb nationalist called Gavrilo Princip shot dead Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie on the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo.

It was a single act of violence that started a chain reaction into what we now call the First World War. 

2 million Germans, 1.7 million Russians, 1.4 million French, 1 million British, plus many others, died in that conflict; 16 million people in all.

On 1st September 1939, Adolf Hitler, having successfully overrun Austria and Czechoslovakia, ordered the military invasion of Poland.

It was a single act of violence that instantly triggered the Second World War.

26.6 million Russians, 7.4 million Germans, 5 million Poles, half a million British, plus many others, died in that conflict. Including civilians, about 72 million people died in all – over 4 times the number of people killed in the First World War.

We recite figures in millions of people whose lives were abruptly ended by these wars, but of course each one would all have had a unique story to tell. Many of those stories will never be told.

A friend of mine in Southampton conducted a funeral on Friday for a 92 year old Polish man. He fought with the French army after D-Day, was captured by the Gestapo, met a Polish woman in Italy and fell in love with her. He told her that when the war was over he would marry her.

But they then got separated, only to meet again quite by chance at the Polish post-war reception camp in this country. His story is like a film script! They were married and lived happily ever after.

But he and his sweetheart were survivors. If he had died in that conflict, no one would ever know his story. There are 90 million precious people from the two World Wars whose stories and unfulfilled dreams are buried with them.

What we do today is emphatically not to glorify war. 

We do this today to remember with sadness how millions of desperately frightened people had their hopes dashed, their health taken away, their homes demolished, their romances ruined, their families torn apart, their lives abruptly ended because of the foolishness of one single act of violence.

We do this today to repent of the hatreds in our own hearts that lead to conflict.

We do this today to remember the personal cost to a few who stood, and still stand, in harm’s way to protect the many.

We do this today to turn to Christ – the Prince of Peace – that we might be peacemakers in turn.

Jesus said (in the words of our second reading) that we can have peace – in him.

“I have told you these things,” he said, “so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

So the peace Jesus offers us is not the absence of war. Jesus knows too much about human nature to say “it’s all going to be O.K., everything’s going to be just fine.” He says, quite honestly, “you will have trouble.”

Nations are always at war. They always have been. According to my Bible, they always will be. There has been only one year since the end of the Second World War in 1945 when a British serviceman has not been killed in action. That year was 1968.

Jesus said that there will be wars and rumours of wars all the way until the end of time, when swords will be beaten into plough shares and when he returns in power to judge the living and the dead.

But in me, he said, even though wars continue to rage all over the Earth, you can have peace.

Somebody joked recently, “If you can stay calm while all around you is chaos, then you probably haven’t completely understood the situation.”

But actually you can stay calm when all around you is chaos even when you have understood it all too well - if Jesus is in your life.

Not only that, our first reading says that “he himself (Jesus) is our peace.” It says “He has made the two [enemy] groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.”

David Hamilton was a member of the paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. He lived a life of prejudice, hatred and violence. He was responsible for several bombings and shootings before he was caught, tried and jailed in the Maze prison, Belfast. While he was there, after a long personal struggle, he converted to Christ and renounced violence.

Liam McCloskey was a prominent member of the IRA. He was one of the two original hunger strikers at the Maze prison with Bobby Sands. He would have died had his mother not signed a form giving permission for him to be force-fed when he became unconscious. After recovering from his hunger strike, he started reading the Bible in his cell. He converted to Christ and ended his involvement with the IRA.

Loyalist and nationalist prisoners were strictly kept in separate wings of that prison. But the ones who became Christians, from both sides of the conflict, like Liam and David were able to forgive each other, to get on, and embrace each other. Because Christ is our peace.

Jesus can to smash down walls of hate between warring peoples and bring lasting reconciliation like no one else can. “He has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.”

Jesus is our peace.

Some people disagree. I often hear it said that the only thing religion has done for the human race is cause war and conflict.

Unfortunately, religion often has been a source of conflict between peoples and nations, even to this day. But it’s a small percentage. Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod in their Encyclopaedia of Wars put the figure at just 7%.

But, though it might sound strange given what I'm wearing today [clergy robes], I’m not interested in religion. I am a follower of Jesus. Did Jesus Christ encourage his followers to take up arms and kill anyone who disagreed with them? Of course not.

When Peter took out his sword to fight those who had come to arrest Jesus, Jesus rebuked him: “Put your sword back in its place.”

Jesus came for one reason: to tear down the wall that separates us from God - the wall caused by sin. And he did that as the victim of one single act of violence against him - his death on the cross. Put your faith and trust in him, for he alone gives us peace, having conquered death by rising again. 

Let me give you an example of how he gives peace. 

In July 2007, British soldier Derek Derenalagi was on a tour of duty in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, when his vehicle hit a powerful improvised explosive device as it made its way to a helicopter landing site. 

One single act of violence. The blast was so strong it threw him 30 yards into the air - about the height of this roof. Unsurprisingly, he had been very seriously injured. As he lay on the ground, barely conscious, Derek called out in prayer. “Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for the life I’ve had. And now, if you are willing to use me to motivate and encourage others, then please give me life again.”

Reinforcements arrived and Derek and his comrades were sped away to Camp Bastion. It seems they got there too late. He was pronounced dead at the scene. But whilst they were preparing him for a body bag, one of the medical staff checked one last time and found that he still had a very faint pulse. 

Miraculously, his life was saved. He was flown back to the UK where, nine days later, he woke up in Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham. As a result of the injuries he sustained, both legs had had to be amputated above the knee. 

He was visited in hospital by Emma and Bryn Parry. They were deeply moved by his dignity and peace of mind in the face of extreme pain and loss. Derek was the inspiration for Emma and Bryn for the creation of Help for Heroes, to whom today’s offering will be donated.

From his hospital bed, Derek watched the Beijing Paralympic Games. He made it his ambition to wear Britain's colours four years later at London 2012.

He worked at identifying his strongest sport, and found that it was the discus. They built him specialised prostheses to be especially resilient to withstand the force of his throwing action.

Five years to the day after Derek’s tragic accident in Helmand, he entered the London Olympic stadium as a Team GB Paralympian and reigning European champion in the F57 category for athletes with spinal cord injuries and amputations.

But if you were to ask Derek what his great motivation, his chief inspiration, and his major driving force are, he would point to Jesus, our peace.

Having so much he could be bitter and angry about, when Derek Derenalagi speaks about his life, he overflows with joy about what he is grateful for.

In an interview he did for Thank a Soldier Monthly he concluded with these words:

“Finally I wish to add, that as a born-again Christian, I am thankful to the Lord Jesus Christ for all he has orchestrated in my life. I wouldn't be where I am today without my creator, my fortress and my rock. He has led me through my adversities and brought me out at the other end with my feet firmly grounded. To him alone I give the glory.”

You see, when Jesus is our peace, one single act of violence doesn’t have to yield a return of untold misery. It can bring a harvest of indescribable blessing.

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, Remembrance Sunday, 10th November 2013.