This Sunday is Remembrance Sunday, and we will again be holding the Service of Remembrance, after last year’s pause for the November lockdown. This year the whole service will be outside at the War Memorial, and it will begin at 10.30. Students from the High School will be doing a presentation about some of the young men whose names are on the memorial, and I hope that the names of the fallen will be read by Cottingham Army Cadets. I’ve organised a PA system and speakers, so that everyone will be able to hear, and the choir will be contributing as well. My hope is that the service will be accessible to everyone, and that, because it’s outside, people will feel safe to attend.
Because of the Service of Remembrance, there won’t be a Parish Eucharist at 10am. Instead there will be a BCP Holy Communion at 8am. There will be a baptism in the afternoon and Evensong as usual at 6.30.
Because of Remembrance I’ve been thinking about peace – not just in relation to the world wars, but the conflicts of our own time, the fractious disputes that rage in the media, and the squabbles and arguments we all get into. When Jesus said, ‘my peace I give to you,’ we tend to understand that as a feeling of peacefulness, or of being at peace with the world.
But what if Jesus really meant, ‘I give to you the peace I have made by my sacrifice of myself’? That would mean that we can live and flourish, at peace with God, because Jesus has done the costly work of making peace for us. And, perhaps, he is also inviting us to be part of that work of peace-making in our own lives. Perhaps he is inviting us to be part of his work of reconciliation. That can be hard – as anyone who has backed down in an argument knows! – but perhaps, by those small steps in peace-making, the amount of conflict in the world, with all its horrors and harms, can be lessened.
with my prayers and blessings, Nicola