Why we should celebrate VE Day
And probably not for the reason you think.
Tomorrow night (Saturday 10th May) in Cambridge with God, the Bible and Everything (in 60 minutes). Next week I’m in Wandsworth and Weston-super-Mare! If you’re anywhere near, come along and say hello!
8th May is VE (Victory in Europe) Day, celebrated throughout the United Kingdom this week, marking the unconditional surrender of German armed forces on that day in 1945. Eighty years on, the World War Two industry has never been larger. This seems counter-intuitive given that almost all of those who fought in the conflict itself are no longer with us. If you were called up in 1944 aged 18 and crossed the Rhine into Germany the following year, you would be 97 years old today. That’s a very small number of men. Let us not forget that some of those did not make it to their 19th birthday. But the point is that the war has essentially passed out of living memory. And yet the fascination has never been greater.
It is right that we honour those who fought, whether they died or survived. But why the intense fascination with all aspects of the conflict? I have a number of theories that I may write about one day. I even proposed a TV documentary on the subject and found very little interest, much to my surprise (and perhaps yours).
I have a new theory which explains why I’m writing about VE day when it does not appear in the liturgical calendar of the Church of England. This new theory came to mind this morning as I was writing about Psalm 118. (This is partly for a new book I will soon be bringing out which will be called Psupplementary Psalms, or something like that: forty reflections on various Psalms I’ve looked at over the last year.)
Psalm 118 paints a picture of a victory parade, as a conquering hero enters the city through the gates. I had chosen this Psalm to study because it was background reading for preaching a sermon on Palm Sunday. Psalm 118 is quoted by the crowd as Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Let’s look at verses 19-20.
Open to me the gates of righteousness.
I will enter into them.
I will give thanks to the LORD.
This is the gate of the LORD;
the righteous will enter into it.
Here’s what I write about these verses in Psupplementary Psalms:
I’m not the kind of person that goes to watch victorious sports teams ride around town in open-top buses. Football teams often parade their silverware in their respective towns and cities but they don’t really do that in cricket. It’s partly because of the culture, which is a little more subdued. It’s also because cricket teams in England represent counties, not cities. Were Somerset to win the County Championship, would they drive around Taunton, Yeovil, Bridgwater, Weston-Super-Mare and all the villages in between? I doubt it.
In 2005, however, the nation was captivated by a cricketing saga. That was the year when England, having been destroyed by Australia time after time for more than a decade, pulled off a remarkable series victory. An open-top bus drove the team around central London as the nation celebrated the victory. I couldn’t resist but go along, have a look and cheer as the bus drove past.
Our verses in Psalm 118 have the feeling of a victory parade. A conquering hero is welcomed back through the gates of the city to the adulation of the crowd. Although we are part of the cheering throng, the way the psalm is written makes us feel like we’re riding along in the chariot of the Psalmist, a David-like figure who has defeated Israel’s enemies in a gruelling battle.
Sing When You’re Winning
Amid the noise and the clamour and the victory songs, it is easy to miss what’s really happening here. The conquering hero has returned to the city to be with his people. The gates are opened and the saviour enters. The praise is right and inevitable. It may go on for hours, or even days. But what happens next? This is the point where the good king dwells with his people and they enjoy his righteous rule.
Are we looking forward to dwelling with our saviour, the conquering King, Jesus Christ? We need to ask this question because this is what we have been saved for. We were made to dwell with the Lord. Our sin created separation and division. We had to depart. But our king has won the great victory over sin, the death and the devil himself. So we can now dwell with the Lord in the city. This is the part we don’t often think about.
Perhaps we don’t think about it because we never see this part of the movie. The victory parade is the one of the last scenes because the drama is essentially over. The camera pans out and away, and the story is over. The hero is crowned. Medals are awarded. The villains are thrown into jail. And the writers are working out how the villains can escape so there can be a profitable sequel. That’s how the entertainment industry works and that’s okay. There isn’t much demand for movies or TV series without inciting incidents, jeopardy, villains and drama.
Cutting to the Chase
For over two decades, I’ve worked in situation comedy, where the hero’s world is always thrown into confusion right away. Once there is a resolution, and a decent joke, the energy immediately dissipates, and the episode is over. Roll the credits. Back in the 1980s, you’d have to wait a week for another episode. Now, your streaming platform will cue up the next one, and you actively have to prevent it from throwing you into the next episode.
We are addicted to the drama, but we yearn for the dwelling. We yearn for other worlds, wanting to crawl into novels, TV shows or multi-verse movie sets. JRR Tolkien paints such a vivid pictures of The Shire, it makes many of us want to be there. Half a million people visit the movie set of Hobbiton in New Zealand every year. There is currently a place in London where you can experience the world of the hit sitcom, Friends. You can wonder around Monica’s apartment or Central Perk. These are familiar places of comfort with people we have come to love.
At this point, it’s customary for Christian writers and preachers to wag the finger a little and tell us off for preferring fictional worlds to the New Jerusalem and the heavenly city. But we love these places because we know the battles have been won. Sauron, The White Witch, Voldemort have been thrown down and destroyed. We know how it ends.
There is a huge industry around World War Two in the English-speaking world. Why?
Because we won.
Only in victory was it revealed the sheer darkness of the evil that had been defeated as literally thousands of slave labour camps and death camps all over Germany were exposed. A German comedian, Henning Wehn, makes great fun of the English for their obsession with the war, because Germans are not brought up retelling the stories of the war. For obvious reasons.
Living in the Story. With Spoilers.
Perhaps we find it hard to celebrate the victory of Jesus Christ over sin, death and the devil because we still sin, people still die and the devil has not yet been thrown into the eternal lake of fire. The story is not yet over. We are still living in it and we almost cannot dare to believe the ending we’ve been told about. Most of us are not like Lucy who does not waver in her faith in Aslan for a second.
But the victory has been won. The celebrations can begin. And one day, we can dwell in that happy place which will be even better than Central Perk, Narnia, Hobbiton or those stories about the evacuation of Dunkirk, the ingenious cracking of the Enigma code, or the too-big-to-fail beach-landings in Normandy which led to victory in Europe.
Next week, St Dunstan!
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