Remembrance Day Message

November 7, 2021 Sermon - Remembrance Day - Matthew 8:5-13

Today we mark Remembrance Day in Canada. Remembrance Day is about honouring those who gave their lives in the service of this country.

I want to respect that as the focus of today, because it is truly important, and those who have served and those who have given their lives for Canada deserve to be remembered, absolutely.

But I also want to say, in the light of very unfortunate and unpleasant discoveries during the Covid pandemic, they we all know that there is much more for us to remember.

And some of those things fly in the face of the ‘freedom’ for which our soldiers fought and died in WW1 and WW2 in particular. See, those soldiers fought for Canada, all of Canada, all her citizens.

But all her citizens have not benefited from the freedom for which the soldiers we remember today fought.

I want to say that we remember the indigenous children of Canada who died at the hands or in the presence of those who ran the residential school system in Canada.

We remember those who suffer today bitterly because of the abuses they suffered in that system, because of children that were lost to the evils of the residential school system.

Just imagine one of your children being taken away by the government. Imagine that child ‘disappearing’. Imagine the news, that’s been circulating in your community for years, being confirmed that your child was among many that suffered and died in a Residential School.

A dear brother in Christ, James Peters, (Show cover) who was a part of Church on the Street, one of the two churches that this church emerged from, has recently written a book about his experiences in the residential school system.

As much as this was and is a horrific stain on Canada as a nation, I don’t want to remember the failed administrators and perpetrators who caused such pain, in direct violation of all that is good and holy. Hopefully justice will find them.

Those who have passed and those who remain alive to this day will face a reckoning for their sins before Almighty God. I want to remember the children who died, and the families who to today still grieve the terrible loss.

If you are not familiar with this part of Canada‘s history, I encourage you to spend some time online reading about it. I was not taught about it in school, and likely neither were you.

There is a lot to remember. But today we are also remembering, with respect, those who fought for Canada, both those who fought for the commonwealth of Great Britain in what are considered legitimate wars, such as WWII.

We also remember those who fought in wars manufactured with huge influence from the military industrial complex in the US, such as the Vietnam War, or to satisfy misplaced revenge, and bloodlust, such as the massive fiasco that was the war in Iraq, all based on misinformation about weapons of mass destruction that were never found in Iraq because they never existed.

We remember the soldiers. Young men back in those wars, but of course also young women in more recent wars and peace keeping missions, who fought, who were injured, often in life-altering ways, or who died.

Soldiers die. Always young, most often poor. Soldiers die. Valiant, full of hope and promise, trusting their nation's leaders, believing their cause to be worth risking or giving their life for.

Today we owe our gratitude to men and women such as those mentioned, and we pause to honor them and to remember and reflect on their sacrifices both past and present. Let’s take a moment right now to pause and remember.

Today we want to look at a particular moment, an encounter that took place some 2000 years ago in present day Israel when it was occupied by a foreign force from Rome.

The encounter involves Jesus and a Roman Centurion. It is very interesting meeting between the Divine One, and a person who represented the military, which was the part of the Roman government created to maintain the Pax Romana, or the Roman Peace, through threat of violence and death.

“When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” 7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.

So here, an enemy of Israel, a Roman Centurion with 100 soldiers under him, is hesitant, we will find, to approach Jesus who commands only 12 men. “The Centurion replied, “Lord I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But say the word, and my servant will be healed.”