I wonder who or what you think about during that two minutes' silence on Remembrance Sunday? I always think of my grandfather, Albert Taylor. Grandad was born into a very poor family. They were farm labourers in Norfolk with lots of kids. To survive, my grandad learned to live off the land. He knew which leaves and wild roots you could eat, and if there was a pheasant or partridge anywhere in the landscape, he knew it was there. Ray Mears had nothing on him!
When he was only 16 Albert signed up to fight in WW1. At the Battle of Cambrai, after initial British success, a German counter-offensive broke through. A small detachment was thrown forward to slow down the enemy so the rest of the troops could pull back to safety. This was called a sacrifice party – they put their lives on the line so their comrades could be saved. Only my grandad and one or two others from that party of over a hundred survived. Everyone else was killed.
Albert was taken prisoner and endured conditions of great hardship. Eventually he escaped, living off the land as he knew so well to do, moving by night and hiding up by day. He made his way to neutral Holland where he was interned as a combatant for the rest of the war.
A sacrifice party… sacrifice is a universal human practice. The Old Testament Hebrews sacrificed, as did the surrounding pagans and classical Greece and Rome. There were the ghastly human sacrifices of the Aztecs, but lest we think we are any better there were the mysterious sacrifices of the bog people in Europe. In China ritual sacrifices of burned paper objects are made to ancestors. Animists still offer sacrifices to placate angry gods and demons. Muslims have just been sacrificing a sheep or goat at Eid.
Sacrifice is still alive in modern secular life. Athletes sacrifice a normal life to train, volunteers sacrifice their comforts to the poor, leaders sacrifice their private lives for their goals… Has any worthwhile thing ever been achieved without sacrifice? Closer to home, newly weds sacrifice personal freedoms to adapt to their partner, parents sacrifice time, effort and money to bring up their kids, carers give up job prospects for those they love. A world where no-one made sacrifices for others would be a diminished world full of petty people. Sacrifice is everywhere! Why?
Christians believe it is because that is the way God is. "God is love," says the Bible. Then it tells us that His love is supremely demonstrated in the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the Cross. God is the kind of God who sacrifices Himself for those He loves – and He has made us in His image. No wonder sacrifice appeals to us, inspires us and moves us.
In 1917 my grandad Albert laid his life on the line so that his comrades could be saved. And on the night before He died, Jesus said, "Greater love has no-one than this, to lay down his life for his friends." By giving His life for you, He calls you friend. Do you know what that friendship means?
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