What does it mean to remember as a Christian community? Today our community and our country marks Remembrance Sunday and later this morning we will gather outside to hold in remembrance those who fight and have fought, those who have died in conflict around the world, especially those who have done so on our behalf in this nation. We'll recall unspeakable horrors and hold in our hearts those who have and are currently experiencing terrible loss. What can we bring that is distinctively Christian to this act of remembrance? 
Well remembrance is a fundamentally Christian activity. 
In just a few moments I'll stand at the altar and will take part in the remembrance that Jesus commanded, as we share in the sacrament of the Eucharist. 
Here we'll take bread and wine, holding in our hearts the pain and loss of the crucifixion, and here Jesus' words as he prepared his disciples for all that was to come through his passion. Do this in remembrance of me. 
But of course, at the Eucharist we don't just recall something that happened once as if its significance is gone. Remembering is about more than that. Instead through the sacrifice of our worship, through the sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ places himself into our hands, bread and wine become body and blood, and we become present in his sacrifice on the cross. Our remembrance becomes participation and by our participation we are transformed. We are made one with him in eating and drinking. And so, we leave the altar fundamentally changed, understanding that remembrance has joined the past with the present and the future. The past of the crucifixion, that one event that happened at 33 AD becomes a present reality and so enlivens are present faith and yet speaks to our future hope in him from today until eternity. Just as we know the pain and loss of Jesus's passion and death in the Eucharist. So also, we know the joy and life of Jesus's resurrection. Because the Eucharist is our salvation expressed in a few moments of kneeling, eating and drinking. And our salvation is as truly about Jesus's life as it is about his death. And so, when we hear those words, "Do this in remembrance of me, "and know that Jesus' death followed, "our gaze must inexorably be drawn towards the empty tomb, "and the life that lies beyond the cross, "the knowledge that pain and death do not and cannot have the final word. We remember Jesus' death, but in the same breath, we remember that Jesus destroyed death for us. The Eucharist, as remembrance, shows us that all remembrance has the capacity to be theological reflection. We begin by looking at what has gone before. We see the road that God has led us down. We understand the twists and the turns that have brought us to this present moment. We see the places where God's purpose seemed cloudy, where it seemed like everything was the end, as it must have done to the disciples when Jesus was arrested and crucified. And yet we see the beginning of something new, the new life of the resurrection. As we look back on our own lives, we see the moments when we departed from the path that God laid for us and the moments that God gently led us back. And so we don't stop with the past at remembrance. Instead, we see how the past has led us journeying to the present, how those ups and downs have shaped and moulded us, how God has worked to bring us to the here and now. And then we look ahead to where God might lead us next. We allow the past to shape the future because by our learning we become ever more truly the people God has called us to be. And so, what does it mean to be distinctly Christian on remembrance Sunday? It means to do more than simply recall events that happened. When we remember the courage and bravery of thousands of men and women who serve and have served in our armed forces, when we remember that war is still a much mourned part of our world's daily reality, we note that war is always a thing to mourn, that the loss of life always is the cause of pain and that even if it is overcome evil in our world is a terrible thing. We remember that Remembrance Day is a day of sacrifice, a day to mourn that sacrifice is necessary and it's a day to long for a world of peace. As Christians, we bring together those difficult realities of remembrance, mourning and hope together. Because we're expert at bringing mourning and hope together, because we do it every time we come to the Eucharist. So, as Christians, this remembrance Sunday, let us do more than just recall. Let us hold intention, loss and hope, thankfulness and despair, death and life and proclaim with confidence that darkness does not overcome the light. Let us participate in making the past a present reality which has the power to shape the future. Let us lead the way in looking back on the road that we have walked as a community as a world. Look to the moments when ups and downs have led us to the realities of today. Face up to the realities of today. Face up to the fact that we have as a world departed from God's plan because war is still a reality and then and stand how God will bring us back as he has done so many times before. Let us look to where he will lead us next and let us proclaim with hope. Remembrance Sunday is about proclaiming that war will inevitably and eventually be no more. Amen.