November 2024
Dear Friends
We will teach our children to remember them because
generations are linked, as twigs and branches are joined to the limbs, trunk
and roots of the tree; even though our children were not alive in either World
War they can truly say these people died for me. When we say ‘we will
remember them’ we intend that they will be remembered long after we have gone;
we place an obligation on our grandchildren and great grandchildren, even on
those yet to be born, not to forget.
We remember too God’s kindness to us as a nation. We make no claim for our own innocence when
we say that God brought down some
nations and raised up others. We take
nothing away from the bravery and sacrifice of our fathers and mothers when we
say that it was the Father of the Lord Jesus who gave us victory and peace and
prosperity.
The people of Israel were commanded to keep alive, down
through the generations, the memory of all that God had done for them. “I will utter hidden things, things from of
old – what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we
will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power,
and the wonders he has done” (Psalm 78).
Because they feared the rise of “a stubborn and rebellious generation,
whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him”
they placed an obligation on their children to teach those yet to be born about
the Lord and his deeds. It is a tragedy
when a nation forgets its heroes and a greater tragedy when a nation forgets
its God.
Whether young or old you are all warmly invited to join the villagers who will be gathering around the war memorials in our villages at 10.50am on Sunday 10 November. And you will be equally welcome at the Remembrance Sunday services in the church (10am-10.50am in Holme, 11.10am-12.00 in Burton).
Sincerely
Graham Burrows
