Ramble for Kirwan Uniting Church Keeping in Touch pew sheet 5 April 2026

This used to be my busiest time of year. In London, Christmas was busier, but in Queensland it’s always been Easter. Now, of course, I’m a gentleman of leisure. Except that I notice that I’m taking services in one place or another for four weeks on the trot, plus a wedding, plus upcoming ANZAC Day. 


It is a great privilege for a pom soldier and sailor (I was both, long story) to be able to honour Australian and New Zealand sailors, soldiers and airmen. A piper’s lament followed by the bugle’s haunting Last Post sends shivers down my spine. And then, after a silence of sadness, comes ebullient, joyful Reveille - Rouse. For a moment we grieve death, and then the bugle sounds again. To the victories commemorated on battle ensigns, is added the final victory over what St Paul calls the Last Enemy. First Corinthians 15: “Death has been swallowed up in victory” “Where, O Death, is your victory?”


It’s a coincidence that Easter Sunday on its varying dates between late March and late April should be so close to ANZAC Day, but the two days have a certain symmetry. Pope John XXIII said that death is the Last Post of this life and Reveille of the next. So it was between Good Friday and Easter Day for Our Lord, and his Reveille is our wake up call! Think this talk of bugles and waking up from sleep sounds familiar?


First Corinthians 15 again: ‘We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”’

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