Lest We Forget

Preached by Rev. Ed Brouwer at The Gathering Place, Osoyoos
Pulpit Series Volume 18, Issue 34, November 9, 2008

Remembrance Day! Every November 11th, Canadians across the country pause in a silent moment of remembrance.
WW I - it was 1914 and Canada’s population was just over 3 million, most of which were women and children. Of the men and women who VOLUNTEERED 60,000 were killed and 120,000 were wounded. This we should remember.
The Canadians' first major battle was later seen as one of the most crucial battles in history. It was April 22, 1915, and the Germans used poison gas for the first time in war. As 145 tons of chlorine gas drifted over the trenches, the Canadian troops held and stopped the German advance. The casualties were enormous. In 48 hours, 1 of every 3 Canadians died.
In April 1917, the Canadians helped turn the tide of battle when they won a major victory at Vimy Ridge. This too had its cost: more than 10,000 casualties in six days. The war continued for more than a year but finally on November 11, 1918, the Armistice was signed and the Canadians took part in the triumphant entry into Belgium. This too we should remember.
WW2: It was 1939 and again Canadians flocked to enlist. They included veterans of earlier wars, boys still in high school and thousands of unemployed.
For almost six years, Canadians fought valiantly on battlefronts around the world. More than one million men and women enlisted in the army, the navy and the air force. When the war was over, more than 45,000 had given their lives.
The Gospel of Saint John says, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
If this is true than we as Canadians had best remember the price our friends paid for our freedom. And we as Christians had best remember the price our Friend Jesus paid for us.
As the artillerymen swung three abreast down Main Street, traffic stopped and people watched from the sidewalks. Some stood in silence. A few wept. Some cheered a bit or called out to soldiers they knew - they waved at the officer who had for years devoted his spare time to the militia battery, to the gentle giant from the lumber mill, to the young orchardist from the Okanagan, to the blonde haired teenager leaving the prettiest girl in town.
When war came, Canadians volunteered readily to serve their country as champions of liberty. They came from farms, from small towns and large cities across the country, riding high on the initial wave of indignation, excitement, and patriotism. For the men and women who rallied to support their nation's cause, the threats of war seemed far away and unreal.
In the fall of 1914 as the 1st contingent of Canadians left the shelter of the St. Lawrence for the open Atlantic, some of the realities came into focus....Those who came forward had not stopped to count the cost, for the excitement was thrilling, the lottery alluring, and the cause glorious; but now that the confusion was passed and the fulfillment of their vows alone remained to be faced, things took on a more somber aspect ..... and yes this too we should remember!
How could they know that four long years of death and destruction were ahead?
With every battle over this century, extremes of temperature, mud, mutilation, mind-numbing fatigue, fear and death were daily realities for over 1,500,000 Canadian men and women.
For all of these conflicts fought in far-off lands, there is much to remember. Foremost are the people, the men and women who served wherever they were needed. They faced difficult situations bravely and brought honor to themselves, to their loved ones and to their country They were ordinary Canadians who made extraordinary sacrifices.
We should not keep silent in our reflections, the price of our freedom and liberty is too awesome, the cost too great!
Yes we stop to remember today - the horror of war - But I believe it only proper that in our daily living we remember their great sacrifice!
Turn with me to Deuteronomy 8:1-5 Keep and live out the entire commandment that I'm commanding you today so that you'll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors.
Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not.
He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don't live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God's mouth.
Your clothes didn't wear out and your feet didn't blister those forty years. You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child.
Deuteronomy 8:6-9 So it's paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It's a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It's land where you'll never go hungry—always food on the table and a roof over your head. It's a land where you'll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills.
Deuteronomy 8:10-16 After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you.
Make sure you don't forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don't become so full of yourself and your things that you forget your God.
· The God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;
· The God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions;
· The God who gave you water gushing from hard rock;
· The God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.
Deuteronomy 8:17-18 If you start thinking to yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!"— well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today.
Deuteronomy 8:19-20 If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I'm on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it—destruction. You'll go to your doom—the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn't obey the Voice of God, your God.
We should not keep silent in our reflections, the price of our freedom and liberty is too awesome, the cost too great!
May God be glorified in our living!