The greatest indictment against human nature is the existence of war. If there is anything in the human soul and experience that is dark and turbid, it is human beings turning against each other and taking lives. The great John Steinbeck, a master of words and a devout Christian, wrote this, and I think he is right: “All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.” It is a tragedy in and of itself that we have to gather in a place like this to remember those who are the victims of war. It is true that in the midst of wars nations can find their form and their character and from that some nations can arise and become what they are.
Jack Granatstein, the great Canadian military historian, has rightly said that our great nation of Canada has been formed by those conflicts and by those wars. From the War of 1812 to the Riel Rebellion to the South African War to Vimy Ridge to the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II to Korea, Kosovo, Rwanda and Afghanistan, our nation has found its identity, its voice and its form, for if anything good has come out of these conflicts, it is that this wonderful nation that we live in exists as it does as a result of them.
This is mitigated by something far harder, and that is that in the midst of conflicts and wars, we have lost our innocence. We can no longer be naive. We know what humanity can do, and how painful it is. We have seen over the last couple of weeks in our own land a person who stood on guard in memory of those who laid down their lives for their country laying down his life, and all innocence from the Cirillos is gone. Or, wearing a uniform, something that should be a source of pride, recognition and protection, means you are a target. The loss of innocence for the Vincent’s is great. Maybe the last two weeks have reminded each and every one of us just how close the violence of the world can come – even to the doors to our House of Parliament!
The great Dwight D. Eisenhower, of all the people who could say this, said the following: “I hate war as only a soldier can have lived it, only as one who has seen its brutality and its stupidity.” This, from one of the greatest generals from the last hundred years, for he knew what we know and what we see when our innocence goes and our victims are found: We mourn, such are the pangs of war, the evils of violence.
No one in the history of the Scriptures knew this more fervently and poignantly than the great Jeremiah, who in the passage that Robert read for us so boldly this morning, spoke of an impending war and siege for the People of Israel and the People of Judah. Jeremiah is broken-hearted. He knows that his nation is in despair, and that there are aggressors and tyrants on its borders. Coming from the north, there will be the Chaldeans and the Assyrians. They will come and conquer the land of Judah, and the land of Judah will suffer because of it. It is a lament deep from the soul, like the lament that many people had in our streets over the last couple of weeks. It was a loss of innocence. It was a loss of life. It was a painful reality of what was going to happen.
Jeremiah is warning his people: “The siege is coming!” What does he encourage them to do? He encourages them to gather up their bundles and prepare to leave. The actual language that is used to describe it is like a slingshot that is going to throw you into an unknown abyss. But, gather up your bundle, gather up your things, gather up your blankets, and take them with you, for your houses and your tents will be destroyed and there will be no pegs in the ground. Mothers will lose their children, and people will be homeless. This was the reality check of war. For Jeremiah, God was allowing this to happen. He was allowing it to happen for many reasons, but even as he was allowing it to happen, he was in pain for his people. God was in pain for his people. “Bundle up your things, and get ready to leave!”
My dear, late grandfather, who in the pre-War era worked as a millwright in Poland, Italy and in Holland, found himself caught behind enemy lines in Holland in 1939. Because of the kindness of the Dutch for whom he was always indebted, he made it to the shores of England safely, only to live in Manchester. Along with his family on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1940, he was told by those on the street to bundle what they had and leave their homes, for there was to be a bombing raid. It was a bombing raid that killed 680 people around my grandfather. There were 400 aircraft dropping 450 tons on Manchester, and my grandfather only possessed for a while what he could get in his pillowcase! They were the dearest things that he had. He said, “I was never the same after that. When I was told to leave everything that I loved, and wondered if there would be anything to return to, I lived in fear.” This is what war does.
This is exactly what Jeremiah was saying would happen to the people of Israel. This is what happens to the refugees who flee the wars in northern Iraq and Syria today. People get their totes and their bags and they wrap them up into bundles, and all that they can carry under their arm. What a tragedy when this happens! What a displacement of human beings! What sorrow! But Jerusalem responded to what Jeremiah had said, “We will take our punishment. We will endure. We will stand in the midst of all of this. We may lose our tents. We may lose our children. We may lose our mothers and fathers, but we will take it. We will stand in the midst of it.”
There is boldness to the people of Israel, because even though they know they are being invaded, they don’t lose their faith, their courage, or their convictions. They will withstand the onslaught that is coming. They will care for the sick. They will survive. How many times in the history of wars have we found people brave enough and courageous enough to stand in the midst of this vortex of war and chaos, and do the right thing? In the midst of the most horrible thing that we can do to each other, there is a lamp alight of goodness and of courage.
I was reading an article from The Toronto Star that was written during the Second World War. It was careful not to give the location of where things were happening for fear that the enemy would get their hands on it. They told the story in rather unclear detail, but it is the story about a Canadian ship that was in the Pacific, a warship. In the midst of this, there was a sailor who was very ill. He had appendicitis, and the Surgeon Lieutenant on board that ship had to care for him in pitching seas in the fear of battle on a warship. But he did. He could not operate because of the rough seas, because of the anesthesia that the sailor was allergic to, but still he looked after him. The ship turned toward shore, going past what could have been an enemy ship they did not know and into a harbour that would make life dangerous, in order to take care of this sailor. The Surgeon Lieutenant that was on board that ship is here this morning. His name is Crawford Anglin.
Sometimes you realize just how terrifying it must be to care for one in the midst of the calamity of the whole. Israel was struggling with this. How do we care for the sick in the midst of the destruction coming our way? Where do we find the courage to do this? The Book of Jeremiah and Lamentations is a lament about all the troubles and the problems that you have when you are under siege and you are losing everything, particularly as the text says, “When mothers might lose their children.”
In one of the most touching things that I have ever read, written by a woman who used to attend this church, but herself has died, she wrote about the experience of her husband, who was in a Stalag in Germany, because he had fought at Dieppe. In that Stalag, he would write home to his mother. Can you imagine a mother receiving this letter from your son?
It is a nightmare in Fallingbostel. It is wet and muddy and filthy. Food is practically non-existent, and the life-saving Red Cross parcels haven’t come for a long time. As winter closes its grip around the compound, conditions deteriorate. There is little fuel. The hut is miserably cold. Gradually, under the starvation diet the flesh begins to wither and shrink on the bones, so the prisoners have little or no resistance to the cold. Tuberculosis, bronchitis, rheumatism became rampant through the town. Although the small British medical staff sought desperately to save men, the mortality rate climbed rapidly. In mid-winter, we were informed that our single blanket and mattress would be taken away. If conditions had previously been miserable, now they have become intolerable. At night, we were forbidden to leave the huts to relieve ourselves. And, to make sure that we didn’t, savage Doberman Pinscher dogs freely roamed the compound each night. How long can we Canadians at Fallingbostel be expected to hold out before we die?
The pain of war!
Jeremiah understood that even in the midst of this and the lament of Jerusalem, the people needed to ask “Why? Why does this happen?”
Jeremiah answers, with the toughest, most straight-forward words that the Prophet had ever given, saying, “Our leaders were stupid.”
No holding back! They were like shepherds who have caused their sheep to be scattered. The leaders in Israel at the time had become morally corrupt. They had not practiced justice; they had not listened to the Lord; they had treated the people with inequality; they had become tyrants. Is it not ever thus? Is it not when people forget the reason why they are in power, when they become consumed with power or vengeance, when they think that human life is dispensable for the sake of some principle that they and they alone are willing to uphold. Is it not when the tyrant says, “I am all-powerful!” Is it not when nations say, “We are all-powerful!” Is it not when the greedy say, “We will take what we want!” Is it not when we lose our sense of our humanity that we lead the world into war?
Jeremiah was right. Sometimes, leaders in the world are stupid, but they are stupid at the cost of others. How bizarre are some of the wars that have been fought! Over what silly things! Yet millions of lives are given and lost, as I suggested in September, when I looked at the history of World War I. How silly are some leaders! In that silliness, they cause those who are still innocent and those who have to resist them to lose everything, including their own lives. And to try and find courage in the face of the most abysmal opposition and conflict, it is hard to stand against the tyrant, and hard to stand against those who are hell-bent on destroying you.
Jimmy Carter, in delivering the Nobel Prize lecture in 2006 said this:
In order for us human beings to commit ourselves personally to the inhumanity of war, we find it necessary first to de-humanize our opponents, which is in itself a violation of the beliefs of all religions. Once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope of God’s mercy and grace, their lives lose all value.
He is right! So, what does Jeremiah say that the nations and the leaders should inquire of God? What should they inquire of God? What they had done wrong was they had stopped listening to God, and listened only to the inner voice of their own power and greed and avarice. They had forgotten God’s commandments, and they had lost their sense of humanity because of it.
I think one of the greatest sorrows for me is that at times we only remember God and listen to God when we bring coffins down aisles of churches in remembrance of those who have been lost, but we don’t heed his Word during our everyday living. His Word in the midst of the everyday living is to remember that there is One greater than all the powers and all the tyrants and all the empires. There is One who is the source of all humanity, and from whom humanity gets its name and its identity. Every one of us is made in the image of that God, and it is that God who loves humanity, and is broken-hearted when it turns on itself and destroys.
There is a need for us to think long and hard about whether or not we really are listening to a better voice and a better word and a greater guide. Yet in the midst of it, there was a lesson for Israel. The lesson was that they were to cherish all that they had, all that they had been given, to never take for granted for one moment one scintilla of the blessings that they had, never to forget what great and glorious things they had. If on this Remembrance Day, when we remember those young men who lost their lives a couple of weeks ago, and when we remember the countless number of women and men, who because of war laid down their lives for the sake of us, let us not do this in vain, but let us remember them with the recognition that we should every single day, and be thankful for the mercies of freedom, and of peace, and of tolerance, and of understanding, and of love.
If my words do not carry enough force, I leave you with the words of the soldier, a soldier who wrote home to his mother just before he was released from that Stalag. He wrote his parting words:
Mother, while in that Stalag, the most I ever saw in a funeral procession was nine. Always one or two a day: usually, wounded men or others died of malnutrition. There were about 8,000 in our Stalag, counting all the nationalities. No doubt you have seen pictures of Belsen camp. Our camp was laid out similarly, but thank goodness, our camp wasn’t for political or Jewish prisoners, for they were most terribly treated! Such conditions certainly bring out the true personality of men, and there is where you find out what a person and a nation is really like. As I said before, mother, it teaches you to appreciate the simple things of life, and almost tends to take away any foolish ambition: just to have a satisfied stomach and a home and peace was all you would wish for them.
From those of us who have those things, to those who laid down their lives in order that we can have our freedom, we say, “We will remember them!” Amen.