From The Manse Window

From the manse window

EACH year, the Royal British Legion hosts a Festival of Remembrance in the Royal Albert Hall. For me, one of its most poignant moments is also the most silent.

It comes at that point in the service when poppies in their thousands drop from the roof on to the servicemen and women standing beneath, symbolising the lives of all those who made the ultimate sacrifice in war.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the ending of World War I, and the question of why we need to continue to remember is perhaps now particularly keen.

The Great War may have retreated almost beyond the bounds of living memory, but war remains an ever-present global reality.

Winston Churchill is one among several who is reputed to have claimed that “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.

But it was perhaps Abraham Lincoln, writing in the context of the American Civil War of 1861-1865, who struck the most helpful and compassionate note.

“Human nature will not change,” he said. “In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good.

“Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be avenged.”

Wise words, expressing a view and outlook we also find anticipated in Scripture.

The book of Exodus tells of the Israelites’ miraculous deliverance from slavery in Egypt, and how, each year at Passover, the people would remember and symbolically re-enact their escape.

The aim was not to stir up feelings of hatred against the nation that had enslaved them, but to renew the Israelites’ gratitude for their deliverance.

In the normal way of things, our lives are marked by all kinds of remembrances, from birthdays and funerals to a child’s first steps or the passing of an exam.

We remember with gratitude, with joy or with sorrow, and all these mixed feelings are gathered up in hope as we look to the future.

As we commemorate this year the ending of the war that was supposed to end all wars, we give thanks for the courage and sacrifice of those who lost their lives, or whose lives were changed beyond recognition.

As we ponder those events, and the conflicts which continue to blight our world, we seek the wisdom of God.

And, like Abraham Lincoln, we pray for the humility and trust to be able to learn the lessons that history can teach. ■ Next week: Maggie Ingall wonders whether there is merit in not knowing the way ahead.