Sergeant Philip Ball is an Australian soldier buried in Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery in France. He was 21 years old when he was killed in action on 28 March 1918. He was a brave soldier, who was awarded the Military Medal in July 1917. After the war his parents chose an unusual epitaph for his headstone in Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery:
I FOUGHT AND DIED IN THE GREAT WAR
THE WAR TO END ALL WARS,
HAVE I DIED IN VAIN?
I have not found a similar inscription in the thousands of epitaphs I have collected from Australian war graves of the First World War. But it is a question that challenges any reader, and any person who reads it will answer as seems best to him/her. The hope of that generation who fought in, or lived through, the First World War, the Great War, was that it would indeed be the ‘war to end all wars’. If that were to be the case then the deaths of so many on both sides of the conflict would make some sort of sense. Sadly, it was not the war to end all wars. By saying that, I am not disparaging those Australians who served, and especially those who died, in the conflict. They were doing their patriotic duty as they saw it, apart from other reasons they may have had for serving as volunteers with the Australian forces.
The hope of that generation was that it would indeed be the ‘war to end all wars’. If that were to be the case then the deaths of so many on both sides of the conflict would make some sort of sense.
By speaking of the war to end all wars there was a hope for a long-lasting peace. Yet subsequent history has shown that such a peace remains elusive.
The Key to Peace
Can we ever hope to have peace?
The Bible says that the conflict and dysfunction in our world are caused by the sin that disrupts our relationships with God and with each other—from the personal to international level. As long as sin remains, it will undermine every human effort to achieve long-lasting peace.
And yet the Bible also makes it clear that there is a way for us to experience peace. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our sins can be “atoned for” and we can be reconciled to the God who created all things. If we turn to the Lord Jesus in repentance and faith he makes us friends with God. Then, little by little, that peace will begin to flow into our lives and relationships.
Since we have been made right with God by our faith, we have peace with God. This happened through our Lord Jesus Christ, who through our faith has brought us into that blessing of God’s grace that we now enjoy. (Romans 5:1-2, New Century Version)
Peace at Last
As to peace between nations and world peace, the Bible also makes it clear that there will be wars and rumours of war until the Lord Jesus returns and brings about an end to the old order of things. On that day He will institute a new order, a new heaven and a new earth, where division, hatred, injustice and war will have no place for God’s people will live in his presence and enjoy His peace forever.
We are not at that end yet. As we await it, it is right for people and nations in the meantime to seek justice, righteousness and peace. That is why we honour those who fought in a succession of wars as Australians from the Boer War onwards. At best, they were trying to preserve what was good, and to bring about a just and peaceful world, albeit temporary and incomplete.
It is right to honour those who fought in a succession of wars as Australians. At best, they were trying to preserve what was good, and to bring about a just and peaceful world
Philip Ball’s epitaph asks the question: …have I died in vain?’ To this we answer, ‘No’. While his death and that of many others did not achieve the lasting peace that was the general hope, his sacrifice and that of other Australians brings into strong focus moral ideals and virtues that are worth dying for: in particular the ideal of being prepared to sacrifice one’s self for the good of others. In this, we see something that speaks to an ideal that is fully realized by the sacrificial death of the ultimate and perfect peacemaker: Jesus Christ.
