Remembrance – Psalm 46

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This is a Bible reading from psalm 46. God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear. Though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the most high dwells.

God is within her. She will not fall. God will help her. At break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall.

He lifts his voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes war cease to the ends of the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the shields with fire. He says, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress.

Thank you so much, Melissa. And let me add my welcome to that of Niels. Let me lead us in a prayer.

Lord God, your son is called the Prince of peace. Would we see him today as we look at your word? Amen. They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. If I should die, think only this of me in Flanders field where the poppies blow.

World War one produced so much poetry, didn't it? And a lot of it is poetry that we still know very well today. Poetry that, as you read it, takes you right back to the horror of that war. You can just imagine trudging through the mud, cutting yourself on the barbed wire, seeing the festering sores. No wonder they called it the war to end all wars.

Reflecting back on that war in 1919, the poet Yeats wrote a very famous stanza. He said this. Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

Dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. I wonder. Those were Yeats reflections. But don't they feel so much like our reflections these days, too?

The Guardian newspaper actually looked at that and they said, those words have been used not just to talk about the first world war, but to be talking about the Vietnam War, the election of Donald Trump. But actually, even as we read them, it feels like this year anarchy has been loosed on the world, doesn't it? As we turn on the tv, even in the past few hours, the ceremony of innocence is drowned. We resonate with Yeats words. And yet, if that's our experience, it's also the experience of the psalmist, the person who wrote that reading, that Melissa read for us.

You see, the psalms are the kind, kind of poetry book of the Bible, and they are written about real life. At the psalmist, he writes that he's got a sure and certain hope, even in the worst case scenario. He talks about the earth giving way and the mountains falling down little number two on your sheets. And yet he says there is a refuge. Like refugees, look for somewhere to shelter.

This is a refuge. In verse numbers one, two and three, he says that God is his refuge, even when the most. The worst case scenario happens in terrifying destruction. In verse four, five and six, he describes how God is his safe place even when nations are in uproar and kingdoms fall. And again, that's an image that we're very familiar with even in these last few hours, aren't we now?

I should say, actually, especially with what's going on in the Middle east, that where the psalm talks about the city of God is not talking about literal Jerusalem here. And now we can tell that partly because verse four, it talks about a river running through it. There isn't such a river in Jerusalem. Rather, the city of God here is talking about the people who have God as their refuge, a group of people who look to God for their refuge and see him as their safe space. The psalm, in other words, talks about a God who's not standing aloof, but right there, ready to get his hands dirty, to roll up his sleeves, to get involved in the things of this world, to be a safe space for his people.

In World War one, George Powell wrote what I think is probably the most optimistic song that's ever been written. Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile, smile. He used to go up and down the front lines singing it with the troops to encourage them and his family. They looked on as George found that more and more difficult to do, as there was a dissonance between the happy song he was singing and the reality those soldiers were in.

You see, if we put that soundtrack to what we're seeing on the tv from. From Gaza, it sounds sick, doesn't it? Smile, smile, smile what's the use in worrying, really? And yet so often it's that idea that we go to when we're thinking about the brokenness of the world or our brokenness inside. What do we do?

We try and ignore the brokenness. We try and ignore our own hurt. We try and kind of push it down or move past it. We pack it up. Deep down inside in our old kit bag, we distract ourselves.

And internally, just like George Powell, we know that there's a dissonance there. It doesn't work. It's not the answer. When World War Two broke out, very sadly, George Powell died by suicide. He just couldn't cope with the idea of more war, understandably.

But you see, in contrast to the old kit bag, this psalm says, no, throw your troubles on me. I will be with you even in that place of trouble, even in that place of hurt. And once more, one day, I will remove it from you. The promise is that the Lord will remove all that causes war and bring justice to it. He says that in verse nine, doesn't he?

Speaks of how wars will cease, but he does it in a strange way. Verse eight says, come and see what the Lord has done, the desolation that he has poured on earth, the desolation when he's trying to stop wars, how does that work?

Well, there should be a real hope to us. The idea of no more war or conflict, of perfect justice, it should be a real hope. But the difficulty is this. If God is going to destroy all things that cause injustice, well, if we're really honest, we see that those things that cause injustice are present in ourselves. They're not just there out there, they're here in here.

The things that cause war aren't just out there, but they're in here. That selfishness that causes tension with the. The friends or the family. Well, it's just played out on a much bigger scale when nations do it. Isn't it that seeking for justice for everybody else, but subtly ignoring it when the fingers would point back at us?

Well, how many wars can you think of where we say, I am fighting for right and are blind to our own failures? So how is it that God is going to bring about the destruction of all things that cause war when the seed of war is in each and every one of us? The Bible gives us an answer. It's by entering into this broken world, by experiencing the worst case scenario of verses one to three, by being nailed to a cross and dying, both to give justice the death that we deserve for those things that cause war, and to bring us peace, dying in our place, offering us a peace with him that can't be taken away by circumstance, a refuge and a strength. In the early 1940s, a soldier called Fred Austin was shot on the battlefield.

Amazingly, he was thrown to the ground, but he wasn't hurt. And he got up and continued to serve. Fred was my granddad and many years later, I remember talking to him and he told me how the Bible had saved his life twice. You see, as he ran, the nazi bullet passed through his pack and hit the Bible that he carried. It went through every single page except for the last one.

We've still got that Bible, actually, in our family to this day. But Grandad spoke of how the words in that Bible had told him of a saviour who had done for him exactly what the Bible itself did. He knew that the causes of war were as rife in him as they were in anybody else. But he also knew a saviour who offered him forgiveness and justice, taking the punishment that he deserved, offering him a life that he didn't deserve. You see, that day, that physical Bible took his bullet and offered him life.

But the Jesus of that Bible had already taken his punishment and offered him peace with God. I started with a poem. Let me finish with one. A war to end all wars. That's what they said.

By 1918, with so many dead, the notion of peace so strong in their head for 21 years, until it, too, fled before a Third Reich army of terror and destruction. 1.5 million brought in by conscription, sent to fight with a deep conviction that evil may be fought and brought to extinction. Their hopes, their futures, their lives. They gave the young, the old, the nervous, the brave. On Flanders field, where poppies grow once more, they marched forth, row by row, the war to end all wars.

Oh, no. For here again, our loved ones go to pay the ultimate price. And today we honour their sacrifice. Theirs and that of those who suffer in ways no one knows. But as we do, a feeling grows.

Where is the peace their sacrifice owes for? Here we are in 23, with scenes of war on RTV. Europe, Africa, the Middle east. We ask ourselves, could it just be to change? For peace could mean changing me personally.

You see, peace is a battle that rages in all of us. Wanting justice, needing forgiveness. A justice says, I have been wronged. I'll make it right. I'll bring my vengeance.

I want to fight. But that spiral continues night by night, bringing more hurt and injustice into the light. But peace can come from knowing one who stops this spiral we begun and offers justice through his only son, who took our injustice like a sponge was nailed to a cross on which he hung. To offer forgiveness to everyone that brings peace out there and peace in here. Peace to offer a listening ear.

Peace to turn the other cheek at peace that's willing to be meek. A war to end all wars, said the song. But now we honour those who are gone. And as we hear the warplanes throng. Where will you find the peace?

Peace for which you long?

We are now going to stand and sing. God is our strength and refuge. You will all know the tune.

Please stand as you are able.

Strength and refuge. Our present help is hash, his presence. Lord, the Lord of hosts is with us. Heaven, come see the works of America. Lord of his people.

When he shut us the spirit hash Granto your creator, uplifting the nations. God, the Lord of hosts is with us.

Please be seated. And Helen is going to lead us in prayer.