​Before this reflection, let us remember the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew:​"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God."(Matthew 5:9, NIV)​​Today, we honour the lives lost in conflict. We wear the poppy, some white, some red, but we all pray for peace. Our faith calls us to seek the Kingdom of God, a place where war cannot exist.​We must listen to those who saw the horrors. Wilfred Owen spoke against the great lie of war, condemning:​"The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori."​Harry Patch confirmed the grim truth:​"War is organized murder, and nothing else."​Even those who commanded felt despair; General William Tecumseh Sherman said:​"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine... War is hell."​Our Christian faith demands that we stop excusing war. As C.H. Spurgeon taught:​"I wish that Christian men would insist more and more on the unrighteousness of war, believing that Christianity means no sword, no cannon, no bloodshed..."​Our hope is found in God’s promise to guide us away from destruction:​"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (Isaiah 2:4)​Building this peace takes courage—a deeper courage than fighting. Albert Einstein challenged us:​"We must be prepared to make heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war."​We must work for it every day. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us that:​"It is not enough to say 'We must not wage war.' It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it."​Let our act of remembrance be a promise: to follow Christ's love, turn away from hatred, and finally learn war no more.​Amen.*Image sourced from Gemini*