St Alban’s Anglican Church is on Young St, Mooroopna.
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I have two items sitting on my bar that are both treasured keepsakes and instruments of mass destruction: one is the very first artillery shell my dad’s gun crew fired at the start of his tour in Vietnam in 1967.
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The other is a cross made by my dad from railway spikes that we borrowed from Queensland Rail.
Crucifixion was used by the Roman Empire to execute thousands of their enemies, making a gruesome public example of them.
For me, the two items reflect the parallels and contrasts between Easter and Anzac Day.
My dad, Gordon, served 12 years in the army, including five in Malaya and one in Vietnam.
He signed up to go for a second tour, but was told by the army that he would use his combat experience to prepare fresh recruits instead.
His step-dad, Les, was a Rat of Tobruk and a veteran of the Battle of Milne Bay in Papua New Guinea.
Military service goes way back in my family history, to the Boer War.
One of my best old-mates-from-way-back served in Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan.
All these men were asked to put their lives on the line, to die if necessary, in order to save others and secure peace.
And if they had to kill a whole lot of other people in order to do it, so be it!
Jesus asked his young followers, men and women, to be ready to risk their lives, perhaps even sacrifice them, in order to save others and secure peace.
Yet he never asked them to take one life to accomplish his mission.
As we hear on Good Friday, Jesus himself could have called on legions of angels to kill his enemies.
He refused to.
Instead he lay down his own life on a Roman cross and rose victorious over death to save us all, including his enemies.
Jesus refused violence as the way to peace.
As the one who conquered death, he calls us all to follow his way.
Many times over the years I’ve been called on to lead or speak at Anzac Day ceremonies.
It has always been with a deep sense of ambivalence because of the contrasts mentioned.
The climate for war is most often created by politicians and businessmen through their short-sighted greed and big egos.
Would the Japanese have had anything to shoot at Les in the first place, if Bob Menzies hadn’t insisted on selling them cheap Australian iron?
Would Ho Chi Minh have turned to communism and violence, shooting at my dad and his mates, if the United States had supported Vietnamese democracy and independence straight after World War II?
Why did my mate and others fight in Iraq and Afghanistan only to have our leaders abandon those nations in the end?
What was the point?
Every war costs: in life and limb; in youth and strength; in mental, spiritual and emotional ill health.
Many veterans become addicts, become abusive, divorce or suicide.
Then there’s a secondary impact of war on veteran’s family and friends.
They suffer the fall-out.
I know.
So as a Christian leader with some skin in this game, living between the tension of Easter Day and Anzac Day, I pray thanking God for the men and women who run towards danger and evil on behalf of us all to keep us safe.
I pray for veterans and their families.
I pray that our leaders have wisdom, that their policies won’t be so short-sighted and greedy that they’ll need to resort to war to save us from their mistakes.
And I pray that the human race might come at last to obey Jesus and to follow in his way to peace.
Christ is risen! Lest we forget…
Rev’d Simon Robinson,
The Anglican Parish of Mooroopna
The Rev’d Simon Robinson of the Anglican Parish of Mooroopna.
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