Here is what I said for the Dawn Service at Roseville RSL:
Anzac Day is a day for tears. It is more than that – we give thanks, we honor the fallen, we remember. But it is a time for tears, for weeping, for crying. On this day 93 years ago so many young Australian and NZ men landed on Gallipolli’s dreadful shore. When they left the total casualties on our side, including the French and naval, were 33,000 killed, 78,000 wounded and 8,000 missing. Of these, the Australians made up 8,500 of those killed and more than 19,000 of those wounded.
But the shock news of these casualties, far from weakening this country’s resolve at that time, actually served to strengthen it, for the recruiting rate increased. A young nation with a population of just under 5 million sent 324,000 volunteers overseas to fight. 61,000 would die on the Western Front, 155,000 would be wounded. There were so many who died – It averaged out to about 40 men a day for every day of the war – 280 men every week! The places where they died became tombs for our nation – Gallipolli, Fromelles, Passchendale, Pozzieres, the Hindenburg Line… So many Australian families were caught up in this – so many scarred bodies and minds, so much grief.
My great grandfather fought in France. He never spoke of it – like many of his generation. Just this week, looking at the AWM website – I discovered he’d been awarded the Military Cross. He survived the war but the gas cut his life short. I never met him. We lost so many of that generation. So many lost sons, brothers, fathers. So many tears shed.
The War to end all wars didn’t. That promise rang empty as ANZACs fought in so many conflicts since then. WW2, Korea, Malaya, Borneo, Vietnam, UN peacekeeping operations, Namibia to Rwanda, we think of troops currently serving in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor, the Solomons . There are more areas of conflict than ever before. In a world like ours we will keep having new generations march on ANZAC day, representing new conflicts with the same old tears.
The Bible is terribly realistic at this point. It describes a world where warfare begins with Cain killing his brother Abel. Chapter after chapter tells the story of nations at war. Jesus warns his followers that there will be wars & rumours of war, that nation will rise against nation… Jesus himself is killed by the Roman army occupying Palestine. The Bible’s sober assesment is that we live in a world of death of mourning of crying of pain. We live in a world of tears.
But the Bible is a book with tremendous hope – a hope of peace and an end to war. A peace secured not by a sword but by a cross. In the passage from the book of Revelation we heard a solemn promise God makes – he says that the time is coming when ‘he will wipe every tear from the eyes of those who cry’ He says from that day ‘there will be no more mourning or crying or pain and that the old order of things will pass away’ To do this takes nothing less than a new creation – He says ‘I am making everything new’ . The one who brought this creation into being says he will fix his fallen world. He will not let wars continue forever. To people with tears it is good news to hear that there is one who can take your tears away. We can’t take away tears for the fallen, we can’t fight a war to end all war. But God promises to do what we cannot. He promises to one day answer the prayer ‘your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’.