An ANZAC Prayer
Help us Lord God – as we think of Gallipoli and Villers-Bretonneux and Passchendaele and Fromelles and Bullecourt and Pozieres – and so many other places such as Burma and Vietnam – help us as we feel that grief to also feel and know enormous gratitude, pride and honour, and delight in this legacy of freedom we now enjoy.
We have been called, rather disparagingly, by those who currently seek to destroy, “the Nations of the Cross” (Libya, on the beach “A message signed in blood, to the nations of the cross”). And yes, Lord, we wear the cross as a badge of honour and we place it, with solemnity, on the tombs of those who have fallen and we are sobered as we survey those fields of crosses.
And as we see and hear, once again, those immortal words “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” we are reminded that they were your words Lord Jesus, and that the cross also was Yours.
Dear God, help us as we celebrate this Anzac centenary time to get this mix right – to glory in the love and sacrifice of so many, to remember with grief, to despair that it was ever necessary, to exult in the freedom we enjoy – and to know that this is the Message of the Cross.
What is the Message of the Cross? to glory in Your love and sacrifice, to remember with grief, to despair that it was ever necessary, and to exult in the freedom You offer to all who will accept.
___
Adapted from A Centennial Anzac Prayer, April 2015.
Recent Articles:
10 February 2025
4.6 MINS
The talk has turned into reality, and we now have new laws to combat hate speech and vilification.You will have already worked out that hate speech laws are a two-edged sword. Put forward as being for protection, they can be equally used for control.
10 February 2025
2.6 MINS
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan recently rushed to address her state’s most pressing issue — ensuring the alphabet mafia feel sufficiently validated. The Labor Premier issued a stunning and brave statement reassuring Victoria’s LGBTQ+ community that she believed in them.
7 February 2025
5.2 MINS
4 February 2025 marked the five-year anniversary of a military countermeasure deployment campaign that was launched against COVID-19, an illness which, on 4 February 2020, was poorly defined and was alleged to have killed only a few hundred people worldwide.
7 February 2025
4.4 MINS
The truth can hurt, and it can hurt badly. But to experience hurt is not the same as to experience harm. There are ultimately only two worldviews: the biblical and the secular. Let us share God’s truth as unashamed followers of the Way.
6 February 2025
7.7 MINS
Even before the inauguration of Donald Trump occurred, it was evident that the zeitgeist of the Western world had shifted. But I don’t think anyone had predicted that change would occur so decisively and quickly.
6 February 2025
2.3 MINS
The Canberra Declaration has become a proud partner of the Church and State Conference 2025. Even more exciting, Warwick Marsh and Kurt Mahlburg will speak at the national CAS Conference in Brisbane from 7 to 8 March 2025! Don't miss it!
6 February 2025
4.6 MINS
The context for any reforms of family policies is the decades-long successful reform achievements of Australia’s feminist movement. This makes family-friendly, pro-child reforms more difficult to achieve, but not impossible.