Remembrance Sunday has a heightened level of significance for us as a congregation since our building is a memorial to Scottish Presbyterians who were killed in WW1. Last Armistice, the family and I watched the Armistice parade from Whitehall where the three surviving British soldiers movingly laid their poppy wreathes to remember fallen comrades.

During the summer the last two British survivors of the Great War, Henry Allingham and Harry Patch, passed away and so perhaps this year there will be a greater sense of poignancy during Remembrance.

Preparing for the Remembrance service is always a challenging task, especially in a congregation as varied as our own. It is important to reflect upon all the suffering that warfare and conflict brings whatever the cause and whatever side someone finds themselves on. When I was a boy growing up in Scotland, there was always an act of Remembrance in any school that I attended. Perhaps due to my youth I did not appreciate the significance of this, but I certainly have a profound sense of its importance now. It seems that in recent years, people in different parts of the world have discovered a heightened awareness of Remembrance and the need to commemorate it.

Remembrance is a vital part of the Christian’s life. It is a theme that is touched upon time and again in the scriptures. When the Lord gives his Old Testament people the Law he asks them to remember it [Deut. 8:10- 18]. God’s people are to pass on the story of God’s goodness and not forget it. Later on when his people cross the Jordan, they make a memorial cairn so that they do not forget how God had led them thus far into the promise land [Joshua 4:4-10]. In the New Testament where Peter speaks of the Christian community as ‘living stones’ surely he is reminding us that we are living memorials to the Lord Jesus Christ [1 Pet. 2:4-12]? Furthermore the theology of sacraments underlines the memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection.

For all heightened willingness for people to remember past and present conflicts in the Western world there a real sense that their connection with God is diminishing. Within every human being there is a latent spirituality (image of godness), but it has become buried beneath the rubble of materialism, secularisation, relativism and political correctness.

So what can you do? Ought you to do anything at all? After all we don’t want for much in our church context in Brussels; by and large the anglophone church community buck the trend of indigenous churches. The easy option is to continue to live a ‘comfortable’ Christian life. It is the duty of every Christian to remember and never forget what God has done for them personally. It is part of Christ’s call to run against the tide of prevailing culture(s), however bad we might perceive them and to pass on the story of the gospel of Christ. People need to hear it; you have a duty to share it.
Your minister and friend,
Andrew