Here is my Remembrance Sunday sermon using materials prepared by the Bible Society for the 100th Anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War:
Some 65 million men were mobilized across Europe during WW1. Nearly a third of them – 21 million – were wounded. Another 8.5 million were killed. And 7.7 million were taken as prisoners of war. That means that over half of all soldiers that went to the war were killed, wounded or captured.
Some 65 million men were mobilized across Europe during WW1. Nearly a third of them – 21 million – were wounded. Another 8.5 million were killed. And 7.7 million were taken as prisoners of war. That means that over half of all soldiers that went to the war were killed, wounded or captured.
It was considered vital that each man could read the Bible to search for comfort, understanding or simply a link with home. So every one of the 5.7 million British soldiers, sailors and airmen who joined up were given a copy of the New Testament with the rest of their kit. Between August 1914 and August 1918 Bible Society distributed more than 9 million copies of Scripture in over 80 languages to members of the Armed Forces and prisoners of war on all sides.
It managed this despite immense challenges. There were supply shortages. The cost of paper had risen and it was rationed. There were submarine blockades and merchant ships carrying the Bibles were sunk. There was also an emotional toll. Former Bible Society colleagues suddenly found themselves fighting on opposing sides. Bible salesmen throughout Europe (known as colporteurs) were conscripted, or volunteered into their respective armies.
Despite all the difficulties, Bibles and New Testaments continued to find their way into the hands of the millions that wanted them. Bible Society printed New Testaments in khaki, stamped with a cross, for distribution via the Red Cross among the sick and wounded as well as prisoners of war. Nationality was no bar to receiving Scriptures. We know that Germans, Austrians, French, British and more all received the Bible and found comfort in it, thanks to first-hand reports. The response from soldiers in the trenches was shared with Bible Society supporters. Here is just one of those stories:
It’s not surprising that Pte Wilf Kreibich’s tattered, khaki New Testament which he had with him during the whole of WW1 falls open at Matthew 14: the feeding of the 5,000. For Pte Kreibich, a clerk from Manchester, was involved in his very own version of the biblical miracle.
Wilf joined the Armed Service Corps at the age of 23, in 1914. By 1918, he and his colleagues were responsible for feeding some 3 million men and 500,000 horses. Every month they dealt with 67,500,000lbs of meat and some 90,000,000lbs of bread. A photograph taken at the ASC station in Rouen shows Wilf with more than 100 comrades, where they were in charge of feeding the sick and wounded as well as sending supplies, reinforcements and fresh horses to the front. His New Testament is daubed with spots of wax from where he read the Scriptures by candlelight at night.
An ‘easy-going, affable’ man, Wilf had a great sense of humour. Though he was at Ypres and Arras, he barely spoke of the war later in life. But he did refer to shooting dead three Germans who attacked his unit, and taking part in a Christmas Day football match between England and Germany. Nonetheless, according to his son Gerry (80), Wilf leant on his faith during those four tough years. ‘He was a person who took things in his stride,’ he says. ‘But it must have meant a lot to him to have his Bible with him. It must have been a comfort to him. I like to think of him being bolstered by this when he was in the trenches and behind the lines.’
Wilf was the eldest of five children and had a lifelong love of children. On his return from the war he became Sunday School superintendent at St Mary’s church in Cadishead in Manchester. But his wartime Bible speaks of his compassion for children, as he underlined Mark 10.14, where Jesus says, ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these’. His wartime diary also reveals this care. In an entry entitled ‘an afternoon off’ Wilf describes playing ball with the local French children. ‘Those playing ball consider that their cup of happiness is full to the brim if they can get a Tommy to play with,’ he wrote. ‘Several French people have told me that they are very much amused at the way the English soldiers take to the kiddies.’
Only one other verse is underlined in Wilf’s much-used New Testament. And it was a verse that he clung to: Ephesians 6.10-17 – putting on the armour of God.
The day before Wilf set off for France in 1914, he wrote to his future wife Gladys to say ‘goodbye’ and that he hoped ‘to be home by Christmas’. It was four more Christmases before Wilf was safely home and he carried his New Testament with him every day of those four years separated from the people he loved.
This is a wonderful example of what Jesus meant when he spoke about the importance of being ready in the Parable of the Young Women (Matthew 25. 1 - 13). What Jesus was doing through this story was to try to get his disciples ready for a coming crisis (an attack on Jerusalem which would destroy its temple in AD70) so that they would respond appropriately. In this story, the coming crisis equates to the unexpectedly late arrival of the bridegroom and only half of those waiting for that event are ready when the moment finally arrives. Half of the women thought ahead, realised that they may well have to wait some time and brought with them sufficient supplies of oil so that when they bridegroom did finally arrive, much later than planned, they had all they needed to be ready for his arrival, unlike the other five who had to go to buy more oil and then were too late for the wedding feast. Jesus wanted his disciples to be like the wise women; he was emphasising to them the vital importance of being ready and prepared for what was to come.
How prepared are we, I wonder, for the crises that we face in our day and time and are we ready to use them as opportunities to share and show the good news of Jesus? That is ultimately, the challenge of this story for us. We can, in a sense, lay this story like a template across the crises that we remember and face and use it to assess whether we are more like the wise or foolish women in our response. As in the story, the question is, how will we respond to the crises we face? Will our response be wise or foolish? Will we be prepared or unprepared for the crises that are to come? For us, as Christians, the question of how we respond is also a question of how prepared we are to share the good news of Jesus in the face of the crises that we face now and those still to come. What have we to say as Christians about conflicts and crises that face us within our world? Jesus’ call is clear we are to be ready to face the crisis and prepared to share his good news. As we look back today to honour those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus’ question needs to echo and re-echo in our lives and world; are we ready?
How does this work out in practice? Let’s close by hearing the thoughts of two war poets. Although he grew up in the village of Good Easter, near Chelmsford, Cyril Mead was conscripted into an Irish regiment, the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers. He fought in France, Macedonia, Palestine and Egypt. Before the war, his son-in-law, Anthony Hasler, recalls a man whose ‘faith meant a lot to him’. ‘His faith was everything to him,’ says Anthony (82). ‘He was active in the village church and was the organist and also the secretary there. His faith sustained him through the war without any doubt at all.’ Cyril wrote poems that he sent to his sister, Sissy. Many express his faith. In one about the Bible, written while he was in Satliki, Greece, Cyril claims the Bible has ‘pearls of precious worth’:
‘Oh may I read with open eyes
And with sincere desire
That God may bless me and bestow on me His Spirit’s fire’.
For Cyril, reading and applying the Bible led him to the place where, in a poem called A Trusting Soldier’s Prayer, he could write:
‘When death sweeps o’er the battle field
I pray thou wilt thy servant shield’
Or if sore wounded I should fall
Thy grace will strength me through all
Oh Lord to thy servant give grace
That bravely he may danger face
But if to me the call should come
I’ll have a hearty welcome home
Where war and turmoil all are past.
This poem tells us that he was ready; ready for war, ready for Jesus, and ready for his own death, were that to come.
Siegfried Sassoon was another, more famous, war poet. He joined the Sussex Yeomanry on the day that war broke out but a severely broken arm from a riding accident kept him out of action until 1915. Then he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. His extraordinary courage, particularly on night raids, gained him the nickname ‘Mad Jack’ from his colleagues, and won him the Military Cross. He survived the war, dying at the age of 80.
Sassoon began by writing war poetry reminiscent of Rupert Brooke; he mingled with such war poets as Robert Graves and Edmund Blunden; he spoke out publicly against the war (and yet returned to it); he influenced and mentored the then unknown Wilfred Owen; he spent thirty years reflecting on the war through his memoirs; and at last he found peace in his religious faith.
He, too, was ready as we can sense in his poem entitled ‘Absolution’:
Till beauty shines in all that we can see.
War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise,
And, fighting for our freedom, we are free.
Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,
And loss of things desired; all these must pass.
We are the happy legion, for we know
Time’s but a golden wind that shakes the grass.
There was an hour when we were loth to part
From life we longed to share no less than others.
Now, having claimed this heritage of heart,
What need we more, my comrades and my brothers?
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Siegfried Sassoon - Aftermath.
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