This sermon was preached on Remembrance Sunday, 12th November 2023 at All Saints Church Oakham and St Peter and St Paul Church Langham.

‘I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.’[1]

Two weeks ago, the world said goodbye to the Friends actor Matthew Perry. The world was shocked by Perry’s death at the age of 54, years too soon, you would think. After hearing the news of Matthew Perry’s death, my wife Cecily started reading through his autobiography which was published last year. She has found it incredibly moving to hear Perry describe how he battled with addiction and his inner demons. There was one chapter that he wrote that Cecily found particularly poignant. She read this chapter to me. In this chapter, Matthew Perry recounts how at a time in his life when he was so close to overdosing, in fact, he knew that he had taken enough drugs to kill him. In his time of need, he dropped to his knees and prayed, pleading to God for help. And to his surprise, he was met with this light and an overwhelming sense of love, which he believed was God.

You might be wondering, Shakeel, this is Remembrance Sunday, why are you talking about Matthew Perry from Friends? To be honest, I was wondering the same thing as I was writing this sermon. How is this relevant to Remembrance Sunday? You see I was struck by Perry’s experience, how in his desperation, on the brink of death, he called out to God and God came to him. Perry has never described himself as a Christian, yet I was moved by how he turned to God in his time of need and God helped.

At the start, I quoted the opening lines of Psalm 121, in which the writer cries, ‘From where will my help come? And his cry is answered by God who comes to help him. I find this a powerful image at this time of Remembrance. We have come together today to remember the horrors of war and its devastating impact. We remember how war tears lives apart. We’ve been living this terror every day on our TV screens for the last two years with Ukraine and now the conflict in the Holy Land. We see how war takes everything from its victims – their homes, their livelihoods, their lives. I wonder how many people in their desperation, in their hopelessness, place their hope in God as they cry out, ‘Come save me.’

I read the words of Psalm 70, which we heard a moment ago, and I see someone going through the same thing. The writer is on the brink of losing their lives. They cry: ‘O God, make speed to save me; O Lord, make haste to help me. Let those who seek my life be put to shame and confusion; let them be turned back and disgraced who wish me evil.’[2] My life is in danger; it is under threat from another who is trying to take it. I’m crying out, ‘God, come quick because I don’t know how much longer I’ve got left. ‘Come to me quickly, O God…O Lord, do not delay.’[3] I can’t help but think that this is what the men of the World Wars would have been crying as they were being fired at on the battlefield and bombed in the trenches. They are in desperate need of a saviour to deliver them to safety.

Read Psalm 70 and tell me that your heart doesn’t break to see people in that state. Read the war poems of Owen and Sassoon and tell me that your soul doesn’t cry out, stop the fighting, bring them home. It shows us the agony of war and reminds us of our ever-deeper need of a saviour, of our need for God to intervene.

As I say this, I stress that I do not deny or doubt their bravery and courage in the slightest. These men went to war and gave their lives for others because of the greatest bravery, courage and love in all of human history. It’s the love that gives your life for another that Jesus says is the greatest of all love. It’s the love that Jesus himself gave as he gave his life for us on the cross. He knew the horrors and excruciating pain of the cross, yet he went anyway in love for others. These men knew they were going to face some of the most horrific and terrible things in human history, but still, they went out of love to protect those at home and aboard in danger. 

I remind us of what kind of desperation these men might have been feeling and the horrors they would have faced to ensure that as we remember their lives, we don’t ever forget the cruel and terrifying nature of war. As we remember their sacrifice, we remember that war is something we hope will never happen again. And we should cry out with the same fervour as the psalmist in saying, God come quickly, come save us and deliver us from war and violence and those who seek to take away my life. When life is on the brink, be it ours or the lives of others around the world, we should be crying out from the depths of our hearts for God to intervene and bring his peace. When we see the pictures of Ukraine and the Holy Land, our very souls should cry out to God because of the desperate state before us. If we fail to do this, I wonder if we have learnt anything from the millions of lives that we remember today.

I’m grateful to God that we live in a country free from the dangers of war. Many of us are fortunate enough to never have known the devastation of war. But we know that this is not the case for all. Today we remember those from Langham, rutland and across the world who knew all too well the harsh reality. We give thanks for their lives and remember the love they showed for their families and friends: for their wives, their brothers, their sons and daughters. But we also remember today that we are in desperate need for God to come and deliver us from the war and conflict in our world. We might be safe here, but there are millions around the world who are on their knees praying for a miracle, praying that a saviour will come to deliver them from danger. We must join with them and the Psalmist and cry out to God to come and save those who suffer from war. We must pray that God will bring love to the hearts that hate, replace guns with arms of embrace, and peace to those who fear. We must long for God’s salvation.

The psalmist says, ‘Let those who love your salvation say always, “Great is the Lord.”’[4]

Great is the Lord.

O God, make speed to save me;

O Lord, make haste to help me.

 

Great is the Lord

 

Come to me quickly, O God.

You are my help and my deliverer;

O Lord, do not delay.

 

Great is the Lord

‘I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.’[5]

 

Great is the Lord. Amen.

 

 

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[1] Psalm 121:1 [NRSV].

[2] Psalm 70:1-2 [NRSV].

[3] Psalm 70:5-6 [NRSV].

[4] Psalm 70:4 [NRSV].

[5] Psalm 121:1 [NRSV].