Sermon: Remembrance Sunday
Text: John 15:9-17
In the name of the +Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
• Look at presentation on our walls
• Thoughts collected from Adults and Children
• “This is my commandment – that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”
• The call to love is harder than the call to hate
• It is easy to pick on someone else
o who may be weaker than you
o who may be a bit different
o who may have a different colour skin
o who may have a different religion or even way of worshipping as a Christian
o It’s easy to hate those who you are fighting, whether it was in those terrible wars of the past or currently in Iraq and other places around the world
• It is much harder to do what Christ commands us to.
o harder to forgive
o harder to rebuild friendships and respect
o harder to move outside our comfort and reach out to those who are different, or strange, or lonely
• All those who gave their lives, and continue to give their lives, gave their lives for us
• Winning wars is not what is was about
• For after the war is won, the real challenge is in keeping the peace
• It was for peace that these names appear on our wall
• It was with the goal of peace, loyalty and duty that they gave their lives for the sake of others
• It is because they “loved one another as Christ loved us” that we remember them
• It is possibly the hardest thing to do – to do what Christ asks us.
• He asked them and he asks us. Here. Today
• Love one another, as I have loved you.
Amen