I guess most armies in
history have prayed to their god or gods for victory.
On St George’s Day, which
is also Shakespeare’s birthday, of course, I enjoyed listening to the great eve of battle speech from Henry V:
“Cry God for Harry,
England and St George.”
But no doubt the French prayed
too!
The second world war was
somewhat unusual amongst wars, perhaps, in that it was very clear who the good
guys were!
No doubt the Allies were
far from perfect.
And war is a terrible evil
whoever is doing the fighting and winning.
But it became increasingly
clear that WWII was obviously a just war:
It was a response to
expansionist aggression and in maintenance of a treaty.
But more than that: it was
a moral crusade to extinguish the evil of Nazism.
When the allies liberated
concentration camps, some said, well, now we have really seen why we fight.
Anyway, we could imagine
this Psalm which we’re about to read being prayed in a crisis.
David, probably the author
of this Psalm, was a warrior king with plenty of enemies.
And we could imagine this
prayer prayed on the eve of a battle or when the fighting was going grimly.
No doubt soldiers, sailors
and airmen of the second world war would have prayed this Psalm too.
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
This is the Word of the
Lord.
Thanks be to God!
I know the Corona virus has curtailed the
marking of VE day, but I was rather disappointed to see no mention of God at
all at the national commemoration on Friday.
That is in stark contrast to the original VE
day when both Churchill and the King made reference to thankfulness to God.
In fact, on 8th May 1945, when the
Prime Minister made a short speech in the House of Commons announcing Victory
and then he said:
“[Mr Speaker,] Sir, with your permission [I
would like now] to move 'That this House do now attend at the church of St.
Margaret, Westminster, to give humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God for
our deliverance from the threat of German domination.'”
Likewise George VI began his VE day broadcast
to the Nation by saying:
“Today
we give thanks to Almighty God for a great deliverance.
Speaking from
our Empire’s oldest capital city, war-battered but never for one moment daunted
or dismayed – speaking from London, I ask you to join with me in that act of
thanksgiving.”
And he ended
that broadcast by saying:
“There is
great comfort in the thought that the years of darkness and danger in which the
children of our country have grown up are over and, please God, for ever.
We shall have
failed, and the blood of our dearest will have flowed in vain, if the victory
which they died to win does not lead to a lasting peace, founded on justice and
established in good will.
To that, then,
let us turn our thoughts on this day of just triumph and proud sorrow; and then
take up our work again, resolved as a people to do nothing unworthy of those
who died for us and to make the world such a world as they would have desired,
for their children and for ours.
This is task
to which now honour binds us.
In the hour of
danger we humbly committed our cause into the Hand of God, and He has been our
Strength and Shield.
Let us thank
Him for His mercies, and in this hour of Victory commit ourselves and our new
task to the guidance of that same strong Hand.”
I am not claiming that
either Churchill or the King were especially profound theologians, but we might
think that war had taught them and many of the British people some of the
lessons of this Psalm:
That however strong and
mighty we may be, even if we are great and powerful, say we are the king of the
largest empire the world has ever seen, we are none of us self-sufficient.
None of us made ourselves.
We will all face
challenges too great for ourselves alone.
Every moment we depend on
our creator, but sometimes we need a crisis to bring that fact him to us.
We all need a rock of
refuge, a strong fortress to which we can go.
We need, in short, a
Saviour, a God!
Our times are in his
hands.
And so we are fools if we
do not consciously and deliberately entrust ourselves to him, humbly seeking to
believe his Word and do his will.
That is the example, too,
of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr in our next reading, who also faced a
life and death decision – a crisis moment of his own.
Like so many in the Second
World War, he made the ultimate sacrifice.
He had found something
worth dying for.
Just as Christ had
committed himself to God the Father as he died, so the dying Stephen commits
himself to Jesus as he breathes his last.
Jesus the Man is risen,
exalted and glorified.
He reigns in heaven at the
right hand of God.
All kingdom and power and
dominion for ever and ever has been given to this Jesus.
He is the one who will
right all wrongs and bring in eternal peace and justice.
As we look to him and his
coming kingdom, we can go to our Last Sleep with confidence, when the time
comes.
In our sophisticated and
apathetic age, we might do well to ask ourselves:
What are we really living
for?
And is there anything for
which we would die?
If, like a soldier dying
on the battle field or like Stephen himself about to breath his last, what
would be our vision of the future, our hope, our prayer?
Acts 7:55-end
This is the Word of the
Lord.
Thanks be to God!
On John 14 see: http://marclloyd.blogspot.com/2020/05/well-meet-again.html
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