Ardoch Parish Church
Sunday 8th November 2020
Welcome to our Act of Remembrance
Lest we forget
Hymn: “I vow to thee my country”
I vow to thee my country
I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice
And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace
Words: Cecil Spring-Rice, Music: Gustav Holst
© Public Domain
Alex Anderson reads from
Mica Chapter 4 v 1-5
1 Corinthians Chapter 15 v 50 -55
Hymn: Beauty for brokeness
Beauty for brokenness, hope for despair
Lord, in the suffering, this is our prayer.
Bread for the children; Justice, joy, peace
Sunrise to sunset Your kingdom increase!
Shelter for fragile lives, cures for their ills
Work for the craftsman trade for their skills
Land for the dispossessed rights for the weak
Voices to plead the cause of those who can’t speak.
God of the poor, friend of the weak
Give us compassion we pray
Melt our cold hearts, let tears fall like rain
Come, change our love from a spark to a flame
Refuge from cruel wars; havens from fear
Cities for sanctuary; freedoms to share
Peace to the killing-fields; scorched earth to green.
Christ for the bitterness; His cross for the pain
Rest for the ravaged earth, oceans and streams
Plundered and poisoned; Our future, our dreams
Lord, end our madness, carelessness, greed
Make us content with the things that we need
Lighten our darkness, breathe on this flame
Until your justice burns brightly again
Until the nations learn of your ways
Seek your salvation and bring you their praise
Words & Music: Graham Kendrick © 1993 Make Way Music
Reflection Lest we forget
Prayers of Intercession
Minute of Silence followed by The Tryst
Today is about Remembering.
Remembering the fallen.
Remembering the wounded and the broken.
Remembering those who were willing to serve in uniform and stand on the battle lines to defend something that many of us may not fully comprehend much less understand.
Today we pause to remember the fallen – those who lie in foreign battlefields far from the villages and hamlets they once called home, we are also challenge to balance our pride and our ego as we approach these moments of remembrance …
It is easy to get caught up in the patriotism of the moment and wrap ourselves in the flag for , Queen and Country, and lose sight of the simple fact that Remembrance Day is not about the glory of the battle, it is not a celebration, it is about the horror of the battle and the quiet almost desperate prayer that echoes across time, that we may finally learn from our past, and not continue to repeat into the future …
Remembrance Day is about our living memory … but as important is our enduring hope for peace for the future.
Remembrance Day is about having the courage to live with that hope that the sacrifices of the past – the fallen – the broken – the wounded, those forever changed,
will help us find a better way …
That is the lesson of remembrance day. To hear the story of the ordinary men and women who put on uniforms and who in their own opinions ultimately really didn’t do anything extra-ordinary, but simply did what was ordered.
I remember hearing a veteran who dismissed the suggestion that his role in the raging battle of an April morning decades earlier constituted anything heroic … he was simply a soldier doing what he was ordered, and he was lucky enough to survive while hundreds of others did not.
Many of those we make out to be heroes ever stood up and said “Look at me …” Instead on Remembrance Day they quietly and very proudly wore the tiny red poppy and struggled to stand at attention, their quivering hand firmly held in a salute at the remembrance of brothers and sisters – literal and figuratively who gave everything they had in service on bloody battle fields decades earlier.
These men and women don’t look for adulation .
Our task on days like this in our action of Remembrance is to remember that willingness to sacrifice …
to remember those who risked so much …
to remember those who should never be forgotten.
The balancing act we are called to live, is using our memories of the past without being overwhelmed by them and allowing them to be the place we reside …
Perhaps today will be the day that Remembrance translates into doing.
Perhaps today is the day we who never went and never fought will finally see the demands we made on generations past and present.
Perhaps today will be the day that we decide that sending future generations to die is our taking their lives for granted and proving ourselves to be unworthy of such sacrifice.
Perhaps today will be the day that we acknowledge that there is no greater love than to lay our lives down for others
and no greater offense than to demand others to take lives on our behalf.
Perhaps today will be the day that we rise up and declare that the insatiable appetite of the grave will find no easy meal amongst our nations.
Perhaps today’s minute of silence will finally be enough for us to actually remember….. and not repeat the failures that rob our brave sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbours of their humanity or their lives.
In our remembrance today, and in the coming days – may we have the courage to learn from the past and to recreate the future as God yearns it to be.
AMEN
Remembrance Day Song
O Lord, we look upon the past,
Rememb’ring those who went before.
Who heard the call and bore for us
The brutal, bloody face of war.
We think of them and think of you,
Who came to earth as one of us,
To share our pain and bear our wounds,
And make the final sacrifice.
O Lord, we look around today
And see a world in conflict still.
We pray those who strive for peace,
Who stand for truth or lives rebuild.
We weep with those whose hearts are scarred,
Whose way is hard, whose hope is weak.
To refugees whose homes are lost,
God of all comfort, comfort speak.
O Lord, we look ahead in hope
To see the dawning of the day
When swords are beaten into ploughs
And every tear is wiped away;
When wounds are healed and fear dispelled
And all who trust in you arise;
When Christ, the Prince of Peace, has come
And glory, glory fills the skies.
© 2018 Colin Webster Songs, Phil Moore Songs and Tim Chester Publishing