As we commemorate Remembrance Sunday this year and remember those service men and women who died not only in the First and Second World Wars but in more recent conflicts, we also hold in prayer those places in the world that continue to be marred by the horror of war in the twenty first century.

In September the US newspaper The Wall Street Journal estimated that a million people have been killed or wounded in the Russia-Ukraine conflict whilst thousands of people have been killed in the ongoing conflict occurring in Israel, Gaza, & Lebanon. In Sudan an ongoing civil war has resulted in thousands of deaths and the displacement of eight million people.

On 16^th April 1953 the 34^th President of the United States, Dwight D Eisenhower, delivered a speech that warned against the extremes of the modern military-industrial complex that not only facilitates the horror of war but deprives humanity in other ways. In the speech the president declared that:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

These observations were perhaps even more poignant coming from a former five-star general who had served as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during the Second World War and had overseen the invasion of Normandy in 1944. President Eisenhower knew the human cost of war first hand both in terms of lives lost and the loss of human potential.

A few months before making this speech, on 1^st February 1953, President Eisenhower was baptised and confirmed into the National Presbyterian Church. He remains the only US President to be baptised while in office. President Eisenhower’s Christian faith was surely a significant factor in his desire and hope for a world that was free from both the horror and the threat of war.

Although a military man, leading the US during a time of severe tension with Soviet Union, President Eisenhower longed for the day when humanity would be reconciled and the nations of the world would live together peaceably.

In the reading that we have today Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9). At the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus is a commitment to peace. A commitment to loving not only our neighbours but our enemies as well (Matthew 5:43-48).

In a world where conflict, violence, oppression, and injustice continues to strangle and choke humanity Jesus call to love one another and to work for peace is as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago. Jesus not only showed us the way of peace and love in his teaching but in his dying and raising as well. Jesus demonstrated a new way of being in a violent world; a way in which the love of God and the love of our fellow human beings overcomes the sin that leads us into violent conflict and deprives humanity of its dignity and full potential.

As we remember those who gave up their lives in the service of the nation and give thanks for the peace and security that we enjoy in our lives today we also recognise the horror and error of war. We therefore also make a commitment to work for peace in this violent world. Let us pray that the love of God might transform human hearts and minds and let us pray for opportunities to participate in God’s work of reconciliation, justice, and peace-making in the world today.