麻豆约拍

Good morning.聽

28th June is the anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which triggered the events leading to the outbreak of war in 1914.聽

By all accounts, the Archduke was no stranger to a gun. Travelling widely, he shot nearly 300,000 game in his lifetime, and collected around 100,000 hunting trophies. During one of these trips, to England in 1913, he narrowly avoided being shot when a gun went off by accident. His host, the Duke of Portland, wrote in his memoirs that he often wondered whether the Great War might have been averted had the archduke died on the shoot rather than in Sarajevo the following year.聽

It鈥檚 a moot point. The Great War did happen, and arguably the whole world became a more cynical, less optimistic place as a result. To imagine a world without such pointless loss of young lives in the trenches of Europe is futile. To picture a reality where economic hardship did not stoke the fires of extremism in Nazi Germany is the stuff of time-travelling fiction. History cannot be rewritten and responsibility for global conflict cannot be laid at the feet of one bloodthirsty European nobleman. No matter how much we analyse the causes of war, it is hard to escape the fact that in the heart of each of us lurks a propensity for violence and the capacity for evil.聽

It鈥檚 this reality that makes the concept of grace so attractive. The Christian belief that God atones for the sin of the world though his own sacrificial death provides comfort in the midst of suffering, and assurance that there is hope for all.聽

Lord, we ask forgiveness for the lurking evil in each of us. We thank you for the forgiveness and grace freely given to any who seek it.聽

Amen.