Good News for You
Time for Reflection
Our national identity is influenced by how we acknowledge those who step up at critical times, and by significant events and dates.
Aussies and Kiwis celebrate April 25th as ANZAC Day, for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, who first fought under national flags in the 1915 Gallipoli campaign.
This campaign to open the Dardanelles narrows for shipping between the Mediterranean and Black Seas took nine months and cost 11000 Anzac, 33000 British and 84000 Turkish lives. Every April 25th, these nations’ representatives gather for dawn services at Gallipoli, honoring their sacrifice and showing how humanity’s common bond ultimately outstrips the wars fueled by political intrigues and ambitions.
Returned service personnel have experienced brilliant successes, heavy defeats, technical advances, and heroism that’s ranged from quietly reassuring to breathtakingly spectacular. Fully aware that their future was never assured - against enemies who were either in full view, invisible, up close, or remote - they know sights, sounds, smells, and emotions that no-one ever should. Worse still, some have endured the stagnation, starvation, and slave labor of concentration camps.
Unlike English or European civilians who had experienced similar destruction to their front-line troops, those who welcomed home our returning service personnel had only known war as a relentless but remote source of anxiety. This made sharing the barely describable stories extremely difficult, while those who didn’t carry the scars needed to be extremely willing to listen, and try to understand, even while struggling to grasp what it must have been like.
Today we recall the pain and the paradox of war – a futile necessity at best - for former enemies are major trading partners, and previous battle zones are tourist magnets. Yet as we seek to avoid the fearful cost of warfare, we must be prepared if conflicts in Ukraine or the Middle East further escalate, and if - or maybe when - simmering East Asian tensions spiral out of control.
“No man shows greater love than to lay down his life for his friends,” said Jesus, though his love for the whole world meant that his death was for enemies and friends alike.
His love can still defuse hostility; not by external pressure or through heavy emotional artillery; but whenever we allow him to touch our deepest hopes and fears with his clarity, forgiveness, and courage, we can let the past go and move towards a future where nobody misses out.
Noel Mitaxa
On behalf of a church near you,
Inviting you to explore God’s love.