But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.  (Matthew 5:44-45)

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, one hundred years ago to the day, the guns fell silent across the Western Front in France. Across the battlefields and through networks of trenches came the word: the war was over. I don’t pretend to know the thoughts of all the men who heard that word but I imagine that for many, “Thank God!” would not be far from the mark. And so, this morning, we gather - as we have gathered for the best part of a century - in remembrance on the anniversary of the day peace broke out.

No one here was there. So in what sense do we say that we remember? When we gather in remembrance at times like this we use gifts that we have as human beings - gifts that God has given us; the ability to imagine, sympathetically, what it must have been like; to conjure before our minds the men and women caught up in those times of conflict; to have a feeling for the courage and self-sacrifice that informed the thoughts and deeds of those who served and for the pain and loss that went with them.

That pain and loss spread far wider than the rolls of names that we hang in our churches and engrave on our cenotaphs. Each name represents, perhaps, boys or girls who would grow up without a father; a woman sitting in the shadows of the close of day, a telegram in her hand; a father  and a mother marking a birthday that was never seen. If we are going to remember, let us remember all the hearts broken by war; all the wounds inflicted.

Let us remember, too, that courage and self-sacrifice, pain and grief wear no unique set of colours; that they are part of our shared humanity. The names of those we honour and remember today have echoes in other nations - including those who have been our enemies. For in the fires of war it must be hard to take the words of Christ to heart and pray for one’s enemy; but we who are blessed in living in times of peace have the luxury of recognising that beneath all the differences of language, culture, race, nation and creed we are, ultimately, all alike. 

We gather a hundred years on to the day from the day peace broke out. I say that, but it didn’t last. Within a generation this continent was plunged again into war - a war that would lay waste to cities and shatter nations; that would bring the horrors of war to the doorsteps of the peoples of Europe and end with the development of weapons that could, if used, lay waste to the world.

We gather in an act of remembrance because it’s so easy to forget. It’s so easy not to use God’s gifts of sympathy and imagination that make us truly human; that allow us to feel for those who are killed and wounded in the fires of war and for those who mourn for them. Western Europe has been at peace for decades but wars go on. Men and women - some in our own armed services - have, in those decades, been involved in conflicts all over the world. When these wars are so far away, and involve people who, it seems are not like us - are not our people - it’s easy to forget that the pain and the loss involved in those conflicts are every bit as real and as visceral as those experienced by our own people a century ago.

We gather in an act of remembrance. Let us remember that all war is failure. Not failure on the part of those we honour this morning or of those who serve in our armed forces. Our failure. Humanity’s failure. The failure of human beings down the centuries to get on with one another. Our failure, as humanity, to recognise the truth of Churchill’s injunction that it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war. Our failure as humanity to resist the temptations of power and wealth and pride. Our failure to recognise that we are all brothers and sisters.

We gather, though, in a church. We gather in a place that is built for the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ and this Sunday is no different. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is this: that through Christ’s death on the Cross our sins are forgiven - our sins as individuals and as humanity. We are not bound by the failings of the past. We are set free, each and every day to hope that today we will grow - today we will be better than we have been, today we more closely resemble what we are meant to be - the children of God, made in the image of God; made in love, by love, for love.

“Love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you,” said Jesus. That may seem strange - maybe it seems impossible. It means calling on those same God-given gifts we exercise here today - the ability to put ourselves into the place of others - to recognise that those who seem so different from us are like us. To recognise that those who seem so threatening are like us. That those whose beliefs seem so alien to us are like us. There - right there - is the root of love. 

Not some fluffy, sentimental love, but the love that makes the difficult choice to care for people who seem to hate you. The love that sees the fear in the eyes of the refugees that flee the wars of the world and know what it’s like to be afraid. The love that sees a hand raised in anger and knows what it’s like to be angry. The love that reaches across the barriers and the barbed wire and across the battlefields and reminds us that we’re not so different after all.

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Sometimes the teachings of Jesus seem so hard and maybe this is one of the hardest. But it’s one that is filled with hope. It is the hope that one day humanity will learn. We will come to see who we truly are - that’s why he follows it up with, “that you may be children of your Father in Heaven”. We are all - all of humanity, children of a loving God.

One day humanity will learn. We will come to see one another - each man, woman and child on the planet - as a precious child of God, unique and irreplaceable. Is that so hard? Think of the person you love most in all the world. Do you not think of them as unique and irreplaceable? If you can make the leap of seeing that those we remember this morning were just as unique and irreplaceable to a child, a wife, a parent then you touch the mind of God. If we can see that someone we might call our enemy is equally unique and irreplaceable then we glimpse what it is to truly be the children of God.

“Love your enemies”. It seems to fly in the face of human experience. But the Gospel is that we are not bound by our experience. And this teaching is full of hope. The hope that one day the guns will fall silent across all the world. The hope that one day a whisper will spread through the hearts and minds of humanity that war is over. The hope that one day we will not need our young men and women to offer deeds of courage and self-sacrifice; that, one day, peace will break out. We will beat our swords into ploughshares and we will study war no more.

Lord, we remember and honour those who laid down their lives in times of war. May we honour them further by striving ever for peace; by following in the way of your Son: the Prince of peace.

Preached at Gretna Old parish church