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Yesterday’s Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ottawa were certainly somber, but they were also affirmative.  They affirmed, with grateful appreciation, the precious blessings that have been preserved for us through the sacrifices of our gallant men and women in uniform. 
            Christianity is sometimes faulted for its negativity, the negativity found in the “Thou Shalt Nots” of the Decalogue.  But as Paul reminds us, the message of Christ is wholly affirmative: “In him it is always Yes.” 
            This is not an easy time to be affirmative.  The Armistice which we commemorated yesterday marked the end of a bloody war, but at least it was an end and a cause for celebration, however temporary.  So too in 1945 the capitulation of the Germans and the Japanese was a victory over the forces of evil: VE Day and VJ Day. 
            But the hostilities which Western civilization is facing today did not begin with a declaration of war, nor can we hope for an armistice within our lifetime.  In England there are 1600 individuals engaged in terrorist activities and no less than 30 separate plots.  Tony Blair has predicted that the struggle will continue for at least a generation, and it would be a miracle if we in Canada remain untouched by this evil.. 
            Within our Anglican Church it is hard to be upbeat, faced, as we are, by a continuing decline in membership and by the inability of so many across the Anglican Communion to respect the principle of mutual tolerance on which the Anglican way depends. 
            And yet…   And yet…  Martin Luther frequently used the German word trotzdem: in spite of everything.  This is not a fatalistic acknowledgement that life must go on; it is a passionate affirmation of life, in spite of everything.  The struggle of the Maccabees began with the defiant declaration of Mattathias:
                Even if all the nations that live under the rule of the king obey him,
                and have chosen to do his commandments, departing each one from
                the religion of his fathers, yet I and my sons and my brothers will
                live by the covenant of our fathers.
                1 Maccabees 2:19

            Our Christian confidence is expressed by Paul:
                We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are
                unseen.  For the things that are seen are transient, but the things
                unseen are eternal.
                2 Corinthians 4:18

            The spirit of affirmation which says “Yes” to life, in spite of everything, does not mean closing our eyes to reality.  It does not means saying “Peace, peace, when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14).  It does not mean glossing over evil.  Rather, like Paul, we confidently ask, “If God is for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31)
            Some years ago there was a catchy song that began, “You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative,” and the Pauline text with which I began finds an echo in one of the greatest works of 20th century English literature, James Joyce’s Ulysses, which ends with the word: Yes.

November 12, 2006

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