Vicar’s sermon 9.6.24 for 80th anniversary commemoration of D Day

For many years now the Hardings (en famille) have travelled the length of the country down to Portsmouth & the south coast and across to France for our holiday. Our next visit is now coming into view, the tickets are booked and the familiar journey beckons (complete with its evening queue to roll onto the ferry and breakfast at dawn as the coast appears). We know the ferry port at Ouistreham (outside Caen) well – its funfair and marketplace next to the quay, its bars and restaurants doing a roaring trade serving thousands of travellers every day. The welcome to Normandy includes tourist brochures and directions to farm shops and attractions where Calvados can be bought and French cheeses sampled. And, of course, in amongst the attractions are the sites associated with the D Day landings – Pegasus Bridge, the Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches and the like. If you know the coast of Normandy, you’ll know that in every village there is a memorial and streets are named after the commanding officers of the forces that liberated them. There are flags and souvenirs and everything you might associate with a seaside holiday…and there are graves. Row upon row of them, immaculately kept. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers who fought on both sides of the conflict, remembered.
These days we travel through Normandy and head for the sun further south. But holidays along this coast are very different to holidays elsewhere: the events of D Day are ever present even as you head to the beach with your bucket and spade- an American jeep outside a shop, gun emplacements serving as ideal spots for the ubiquitous ‘selfie’.
D Day and the days that followed established a beach head for the allies to change the direction of the war in Europe entirely. It involved huge logistical planning that took many, many months. It caught up whole communities on both sides of the channel, civilian and military. It was a huge risk and a risk that involved immense cost. It relied on plans being hidden. The weather and the tides played their part: the coming together of the Allies’ planning with the vagaries of cloud cover in the night sky and the gravitational pull of the moon upon the waters of the English Channel meant that the decision to ‘go’ (to set the whole plan in train) was huge. Once committed there was no turning back.
Losses on the beaches were considerable and they would mount up over the coming days. But by the end of the first day tens of thousands of troops had landed in France and the Allies had captured a small stretch of land that reached 4, 5, 6 miles in from the coast. There would be another 11 months of fighting across Europe till VE Day, in May 1945: the D Day beach- heads leading to the liberation of Europe.
One of my favourite hymns is ‘The strife is o’er, the battle done’. It’s an Easter hymn and the battle referred to in the hymn was fought by Jesus and took place on the morning of the first Good Friday: like all battles it was brutal and bloody. The first flags of victory were raised on Easter Morning and Easter in Christian theology heralds the possibility of liberation for the whole world. These days we’re a little shy of using the imagery of conflict and struggle in our portrayal of the Christian faith but it has not always been so.
The imagery of a hard-fought beach head is more than appropriate for what we believe Jesus to have achieved. There was planning and deliberation in the heart of God. There is no acceptance by God in the Scriptures, that the world should be abandoned by Him, left enslaved by Sin and Death. No! These things needed to be confronted and defeated. The whole bible story, written down centuries, shows us God wrestling with all that destroys and mars human existence and prevents us from living in relationship with Him. He sought to restrain our worst instincts through the Law given to a people who would be an example and blessing to others. He offered (through them) ways for communities and families to live together (respecting His image within each and every person) and yet, repeatedly, His attempts failed as His people let Him down. Something more had to be done.
And that ‘more’ was that He sent us His Son. With Jesus, a new attempt to bring in God’s Kingdom was made. As Jesus travelled through Galilee preaching and healing, signs of what might be possible were given, intimations that freedom was coming because God has come to His people. But liberation came at a cost. It was Jesus who gave us the words ‘Greater love has no man than that they lay down their life for their friends’. Years later it was the apostle Paul who said ‘God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us’ – Jesus’ death won a victory for all people (there is no one excluded from God’s love shown in the person of Jesus Chris) but the reconciliation of the world to God took huge sacrifice on His part. Love’s endeavour, love’s expense.
And so, on a patch of land outside Jerusalem, a foothold was established by God for his Kingdom to grow. It didn’t look much of a victory but, after 3 days signs of this foothold becoming established in the hearts of a few people could be seen. The days of Easter are confusing and chaotic but freedom was in the air. After 50 days people gathered in Jerusalem itself to celebrate liberation: hope began to rise and the people of God began to move. Down the centuries the mission of the church has taken Christian people to all four corners of the earth to announce the Good News of a decisive battle won and the Kingdom coming.
Ever since there have been setbacks and failures but also huge advances. We are called to announce the kingdom in every area of life and Christian soldiers have done so in campaigning for international justice, in feeding the poor and educating the young, in bringing healing where there is pain and distress, comfort where there is abuse or violence. We do this as individuals, we do it better as groups of Christians, we do it at a local and national level. We do it as we restrain evil and promote good, as we protect the vulnerable and strengthen the weak. (Sometimes love needs to be tough.) At times, like the apostle Paul in our first reading, it will feel as if we’re on a hiding to nothing…but we take heart. Think of the great names that have gone before (the saints commemorated in our churches more than in street names), think of the great evangelists and missionaries of the past (Boniface, Colomba, Cuthbert, Wesley and Booth). Think of the martyrs of this land stretching back to St Alban and those who in more recent years gave their lives to serve others in the name of Christ. Think too of the social reformers of the Victorian age, those who worked for better health, better housing, to establish education for all, to provide opportunity for men and women and to lift them from poverty and destitution. Think of the goodness that flows from Jesus’ followers in the work of churches up and down the land.
So much has flowed from that one day when Christ’s cross was raised, the faithfulness of God was revealed for all to see and where week by week we gather to celebrate the freedom He has won for us by His great sacrifice. We give thanks for all who have followed in his footsteps, all who have fought for the freedom of others against tyranny and oppression and we commit ourselves again to striving for the Kingdom of God here amongst us. Our freedom has been bought at a price. Let us live it in the power of Christ’s resurrection to help set others free.