Armistice Day
On November 11, we celebrated Veteran’s Day. We gave well-deserved thanks, honor, and respect, to those who have risked their lives and made innumerable other sacrifices in defense of this nation. Incidentally, this being 2011, we also commemorated a date that only comes around every one hundred years, and we took pictures and texted and called each other at historic moments like 11:11:11 on 11/11/11 – a.m. and p.m.
A colleague of mine said it best, I think, when she recalled Isaiah 2:4 and remembered God’s ultimate promise of ultimate peace. “[God] shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2:4, NRSV) While we pray for those in our armed services, we also pray for the day that they are put out of work. The prophet Isaiah expresses this hope and this promise so eloquently, another of my favorite passages being Isaiah 65:17-25.
Which is why it is so important to remember that before Veteran’s Day was Veteran’s Day, it was Armistice Day. November 11, 1918, was the day when the Allies and the Germans, on the Western Front at least, ceased fire. It is the day that is remembered as the end of World War I, although hostilities continued for a time on other fronts. The ceasefire was made official at 11:00 a.m. on 11/11. It is still commemorated as Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day, in many places. It was after World War II that Armistice Day became Veteran’s Day in the United States.
Love our soldiers, veterans, and their families. Hate war. Pray for our soldiers, veterans, and their families. Pray for peace.
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