100 years ago to the week, my great-uncle Albert Brainerd Raynes went to war.

He was just 20 years old, a student at Nottingham University, where he was part of the Officer Training Corps.

He went to France on 5th November 1914 and never returned home. On 9th March he wrote what would be his last letter, warning his parents that they would not hear from him for a few days ‘owing to business’. The following day he was killed on the opening day of the battle of Neuve Chapelle in a shell attack.

Albert’s story of course is not unique. The new memorial plaques in Corporation Park are an eloquent reminder of the 3000 men of Blackburn who never came back – and of the families who wept for them.

The tragedy is that the Great War was supposedly ‘the war to end all wars’. But the sad evidence of the past century has not suggested that we are anywhere nearer an end to human conflict.

Last Sunday we sang Psalm 46 in church. It has a particular relevance for Remembrance Day because it invites us to consider the reality of God in a world that is seemingly out of control.

The invitation is to consider God’s power to destroy all that disturbs and disrupts his world.

“He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear”. (verse 9) The person with his finger on the nuclear button will not have the last word. God will bring war to an end. And a world of justice and peace will be the outcome. A world in which the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, will exercise his loving rule.

And if that is the future of the world, then the only wise response must be to heed the warning and stop saying no to him.

Psalm 46 puts it very simply: “Be still and know that I am God.” Come to your senses, face reality - and recognise that God is God. He will have the last word.

Revd Canon Andrew Raynes Vicar of Christ Church with St Matthews and Area Dean of Blackburn with Darwen