Lest We Forget – never more relevant than for today

2020 Anzac Day for those in Australia and New Zealand will be commemorated in the strangest of ways, ever.  I know many who will assemble at the end of their driveways with their candles at 5:55 am on Anzac Day, April 25.

We won’t go to dawn services, nor marches, nor services held in the afternoon, where we would hear The Ode recited, Reveille and The Last Post bugled, as well as a series of distinguished recitations and speeches given.

Instead, we will hold our own private requiems, and for many it will be the oddest (and saddest) way to commemorate what has become a significant part of our Australian and New Zealand calendar.

For those who have loved ones or descendants who have served militarily — my wife and I have one grandfather each who served in World War II — Anzac Day is as solemn a day as it gets, behind only Easter if we’re Christian.  And yet, our Anzac Day, at least on mere mortal terms, is very well linked with the Easter message.

It may not be well known, but “Lest We Forget” emanates from the Christian poem, Recessional, by Rudyard Kipling, who wrote it in 1897 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Jubilee.  Kipling actually wrote it as a swipe against British imperialism of the day.  I love it how this commentator put it:

“The use of the phrase for those who sacrificed their lives was drawn from a Christian poem called Recessional, by English poet Rudyard Kipling.  He wrote the poem to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1897 and used the phrase to challenge the hubris, the excessive pride or over confidence of humanity in those times.  He was challenging the thinking that we had dominion over all other men and nature.  He wrote it as a prayer referring to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ and that we and whatever we create is temporary and subservient to a greater God and that we should not forget that.” (Geoff Glass)

The more we reflect on the term Lest We Forget, the more we come to recognise its biblical roots.  Upon further examination, indeed, it takes us back into the very annuls of Old Testament tradition — the Shema (pronounced with the short-e, She-mar).

It is true, that while we counsel ourselves never to forget the sacrifices made for us through our service men and women, the deeper message is we should never forget the Lord our God, as it is written in Deuteronomy 6:12 —

“... then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (ESV, bolding for emphasis)

When we reflect on the Kipling poem, Recessional, perhaps today more than ever we are called back to that late 19th century time; where there was much misplaced trust in humanity, where the Imperial thought represented the folly of confidence in the humanity of that day — solemnity in the name of God nowhere in sight.

We live in that day, today, where there is either blind confidence in nationalistic agendas or the commensurate cynicism of them — with hardly any halfway ground, and even less full subservience to God.  (And yes, I am aware that I have not mentioned the agenda of globalism.)  And, not least, leaders worldwide, at least as far as the developed east and west is concerned, very often feature hubris, excessive pride and over confidence in humanity.

We are coming to the end of the age, where the strangest feeling pervades all thought.  The enemy is an iddy-biddy virus.  There is no marauding enemy conquering the present empires.  All empires are under siege.  (We may well want to party with conspiracy theories, but we face a much bigger threat than that — there are myriad unknowns in terms of the biopolitical threat that we face presently and for the years to come.)

Could this be a time where we are all called back to remember the Lord our God?  A time when we must agree that it isn’t missiles that threaten entire civilisations, but microbes.

There is no sinister conspiracy agenda, because all sides stand to lose as God proves yet again that humanity has much less control over all creation than it thinks it has.  Could it be that God is restoring the fortunes of the divine created order?  How else would the whole earth, languishing having been pillaged, be bought to a standstill for God’s own purposes?

We are reminded through the humble term, Lest We Forget, of so very many important things, not least that there are some things we ought never to forget lest we fall into repeating them, and the message of sacrifice — which, with the years, we are destined to forget.

God uses a coronavirus to again claw back our attention:

Men and women have served and died for the cause of humanity, yet there was one who served and died to save all humanity.  The men and women who served and died in their call of duty epitomised the Christ.  There is no higher honour.  When we think of them we ought to think of Christ, and when we think of Christ we ought to think of them and the martyrs.

When we ponder the message, Lest We Forget, may we remember not only the sacrifices of the men and women he served in our stead — the many millions who died in wartime or in active service for their sovereign and/or country — but may we also remember the sacrifice of the Son of God, because it was he who brought us out of our slavery to sin, into the glorious light of the Father.

Through nothing that we had done, only through what he had done.

As we trust God, all creation is being redeemed.