One hundred years ago at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, during the time today when we are celebrating the Eucharist, ended a world war that had brought inconceivable suffering.
A war which upon its start in 1914 all sides had assumed would be ‘over by Christmas’, had lasted over four dreadful years of inconceivable mechanized slaughter on the Western, Eastern and other fronts. Inconceivable millions had died as a direct and indirect effect of that fighting.
The War Poets in their searing works tried to make sense of the inconceivable hell in which they themselves had to live, by telling of the inconceivable stupidity of the generals and the inconceivable negligence of the politicians.
But a visit to the VC gallery at the Imperial War Museum also tells a story of inconceivable bravery and inconceivable heroism in the face of that mechanized horror. Of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, often involving inconceivable sacrifice, for their fellow soldiers, their fellow human beings.
Two thousand years ago on a cross of wood outside Jerusalem, died Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He died – also inconceivably – to save us not only from past sins already committed, but from future sins we would commit.
‘Inconceivable’ too easily becomes a reason to forget, or to dismiss, or to mythologise. But that inconceivable war that ended one hundred years ago should not be dismissed to the history books with grand adjectives. We need to recognise, and remember, the very worst and the very best we can be.
But by the same token, as we celebrate the Eucharist today, God’s inconceivable sacrifice upon the cross should remind us that however flawed we are, there is always hope. Because, inconceivably, it transpires that whatever we do we are deeply loved and already forgiven.
Revd Will Morris
