In the Gospel of John Chapter 15 and verse 13, we read Jesus’s words as he tells those who chose to follow him, There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Today, we stop for a few minutes and step away from the everyday to remember and honour those who laid down their lives, not just for their friends but for men, women and children they would never meet.

It was Herbert Hoover who said, “Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.”   

Years ago, I paraphrased that to say, “War is waged by those too old to fight, and fought by those too young to vote.”

Many of those we honour today were little more than children when they laid down their lives, for their country and for freedom.

My father-in-law was 17 years old when he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy in 1939 and served protecting the convoys crossing the Atlantic.  17!  

Look around at the 17-year-olds in your life.  

My father wasn’t much older when he enlisted in the Canadian Army and served in Germany and as a peacekeeper in Cyprus.

And my father and my father in-law weren’t alone.  

The men and women who fought in the name of freedom in World War 1 and World War 2, Korea, Afghanistan and those who took part in peace-keeping missions around the world were all willing to lay down lives, to protect the lives and freedom of others.

Willing to lay down lives they had only begun to live.  

They weren’t just laying down their physical lives, but they were laying down their future lives.  

They were willing to lay down lives beyond the war, to give up a life they would never live. Lives that would have included marriages, children, and grandchildren.

The price they paid included homes they would never live in. Graduations they would never attend and daughter and sons they would never see married.

There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

The freedom they fought for was the freedom for us to agree to disagree. The freedom to worship the way we choose to worship. The freedom to peacefully and respectfully disagree with one another.  

And we need to remember that every time we respond, in a less than civil matter over major issues and minor issues.  

For more than a century and a half, members of the Canadian Armed Forces have made sacrifices so that Canadians could enjoy a diverse and free nation.

And being tolerant does just mean that others need to be tolerant of what you believe, but that you will be tolerant of what they believe.

And so, we stop to remember those who sacrificed their lives so that others would not have to live their lives under the rule of tyrants.  

We honour their sacrifice by not becoming petty tyrants in our own right, and by not demanding our own way and insisting that everyone believe what we believe.  

And so, today, as we pause and remember, let us commit to not only honouring those who made the ultimate sacrifice, by our attendance today, but by maintaining the freedom they fought to preserve.