Sermon: Sermon for VJ Day 80th Anniversary

Preacher:

Bob Cooper

Date:

Sunday 17th August 2025

Venue:

Guildford Cathedral

Service:

6pm Choral Evensong

In the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Mrs. Elizabeth Hartwell worked at the old Guildford telephone exchange on North Street, and on the morning of August 15th, 1945, she was among the first in our town to hear those crackling words coming through the telephone lines: Japan had surrendered. The war was finally over.

Recently, whilst visiting a parish, I met someone who knew Elizabeth personally. They described how she burst from the exchange building, her heart pounding with overwhelming joy. She ran down our High Street, tears streaming, calling out: "It's over! It's over! They're coming home!"

By the time she reached Stag Hill, a crowd had gathered, and spontaneously, people began to sing. Just ordinary people, singing their hearts out with relief and gratitude.

Tonight, eighty years later, we gather in the same place with that same spirit – but with the deeper understanding that comes from eight decades of reflection on what that victory truly meant, and what it continues to demand of us today.

The Second World War ended not with a whimper, but with a profound silence – the silence of guns finally stilled, of a world finally able to exhale after six years of unimaginable suffering. VJ Day marked not just the end of hostilities, but the beginning of hope for millions of families.

Tonight, I want us to remember with particular gratitude those who served in the Pacific theatre – our soldiers, sailors, nurses, airmen, and marines who fought in places most of us can barely pronounce. They endured tropical diseases, sweltering heat, unheard of cruelty, and faced an enemy who fought with fierce determination on coral atolls and in dense jungles thousands of miles from home.

These weren't professional warriors – they were sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, many barely out of their teens. They were ordinary people who answered an extraordinary call to serve. Many would never return home. Those who did would carry the scars of what they witnessed for the rest of their lives.

Their bravery teaches us something profound about courage. It wasn't the absence of fear – every letter home, every memoir tells us they were terrified. Their courage was love in action despite fear. When we read the accounts of those who fought, we encounter ordinary people who chose extraordinary courage because they understood that love of family, country, and fellow human beings demanded they face their deepest fears.

This resonates deeply with our Christian understanding of love. John tells us that "perfect love casts out fear," but the courage we commemorate tonight reveals something even more profound: love transforms fear into a catalyst for sacrificial action. When we witness such courage, we are seeing the image of God reflected in human beings who chose to lay down their lives for others.

Consider the medics who ran through sniper fire to reach wounded comrades, the chaplains who stayed with dying soldiers, the families who opened their doors to evacuees and worked double shifts in munitions factories. These were not acts of fearless heroism – they were acts of love-filled courage in the face of overwhelming fear. They were glimpses of the Kingdom of God breaking through in the midst of hell itself.

The legacy of VJ Day is that ordinary people – people like us – discovered within themselves the capacity for extraordinary love. They learned that when faced with the choice between self-preservation and self-sacrifice, they could choose love. And in choosing love, they chose life – not just for themselves, but for children not yet born, for grandchildren they would never meet, for us gathered here tonight in freedom and peace.

This brings us to a profound truth that speaks to the heart of the Christian Gospel. The victory we celebrate was not won by force alone, though force was tragically necessary. It was won by the power of love to sustain human beings through the darkest circumstances. It was won by the conviction that there are things worth dying for because they are worth living for – freedom, justice, human dignity, and the future of our children.

Yet we must acknowledge the moral complexity of how this victory was achieved. The war ended with atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We cannot speak of this decision lightly – we dare not. The immediate devastation was horrific, and we must never forget the innocent lives lost. Yet we must also confront the stark reality that military planners faced: Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Japan, was projected to cost one million Allied lives, with Japanese casualties potentially reaching into the millions.

President Truman faced an impossible choice between the certain horror of atomic weapons and the projected horror of a prolonged invasion. There were no good options, only degrees of tragedy. In this context, those terrible weapons may have been, paradoxically, an act of mercy – ending the war swiftly and preventing an even greater catastrophe. This moral complexity should humble us as we continue to grapple with the moral implications of their choices. The same choice that our serving personnel all too often have to make to this day.

As we remember the sacrifice of those who served, we must also remember that their sacrifice places on us the responsibility be worthy of the peace they won. The message of Christ is not that love is easy, but that love is possible. Not that courage comes naturally, but that courage comes from understanding that we are called to something greater than ourselves.

The Cross teaches us that love is willing to suffer for the sake of others, and the Resurrection teaches us that such love is ultimately victorious over all the powers of darkness and death. The men and women we remember tonight knew this truth, even if they couldn't always put it into words.

As we look toward the future, their legacy calls us to continue their work. Not the work of war – may God grant that such conflict never comes again – but the work of building a world worthy of their sacrifice. This means taking seriously our sacred responsibility to work for peace, to stand against injustice, to care for the vulnerable, to bridge the divides that separate us.

But the Christian Gospel calls us to something even more profound. It calls us to understand that the ultimate victory celebrated on VJ Day was not just the defeat of a particular enemy, but the triumph of love over hatred, of hope over despair, of light over darkness. This is a victory that must be won anew in every generation, in every heart, in every choice we make between love and fear.

The bravery of those who served in the Pacific, and indeed all who served, was not just a moment in time, but a model for all time. It shows us that when we are called to stand against evil, to protect the vulnerable, to sacrifice for the common good, we can find within ourselves – by the grace of God – the strength to do what love requires. This is the sacred trust they have passed to us.

Tonight, as we offer our prayers of thanksgiving for the peace that was won eighty years ago, let us also offer our solemn commitment to the peace that must be won again each day. Let us remember that the greatest memorial to those who served is not just a monument of stone, but a living commitment to the values they fought to defend: freedom, justice, human dignity, and above all, love.

To every family here tonight who lost someone in the Pacific, to every family whose loved one came home changed by what they experienced, to every family whose story was shaped by that distant war – we remember them. We honour them. We will not forget them.

Today as we give thanks for VJ Day, let us remember that peace is not simply something we receive; it is something we create, one act of love at a time, one choice for reconciliation over revenge, one moment of courage over comfort. May we have the wisdom to pursue peace with the same determination that previous generations showed in pursuing victory. May we prove worthy of the price they paid.

The light of Christ that shines in our darkness is the same light that sustained those who served eighty years ago. May it sustain us now, and may their legacy live on in us, until that day when the kingdoms of this world become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.

Amen.