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There are names written in stone in this town – names you might pass every day. Names from the mills, the foundries, the churches. The memorials in Heywood carry hundreds of them: sons, brothers, fathers, friends – mostly young, but some old, who left cobbled streets in Lancashire to fight in places most had never heard of.

They were men of the Manchester Regiment and the Lancashire Fusiliers, and of other regiments across the county. Some of those who went away came home; many did not. Their stories, their courage, and often the grief of loved ones are part of the ground that we stand on today.

Defiance and hope

And as we remember them, we also turn to words written centuries before any war memorial was built – words of faith and anguish, of defiance and hope. Job cries out: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.” (Job 19:25–26). And the psalmist prays: “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me under the shadow of your wings.” (Psalm 17:8)

These are words that stand between despair and trust – between the grave and the promise of life. And that’s where the act of remembrance and Remembrance Sunday always stand.

Job’s words come from a place of suffering. He’s lost everything – family, health, security, friends. He sits in the dust, nursing his wounds, accused by those who think faith should protect you from pain.

And yet out of that dust, Job makes a declaration that endures: “Oh that my words were written!” he says. “Oh that they were inscribed in a book, that they were engraved with an iron pen on rock forever!” He wants his cry, his hope, his protest, to be remembered.

Not forgotten

Isn’t that, in its own way, what every cenotaph, what every war memorial is? Names engraved with iron tools – an echo of Job’s longing that what matters most should not be forgotten.

Here in Heywood, the memorials carry those engraved names: Anderson, Anderton, Armstead and hundreds more. Their lives and losses are not abstractions – they were real, ordinary men who gave everything.

Their sacrifice, like Job’s words, is written in stone – a testimony not only to death, but to something deeper: to love that would not be erased. When Job declares, “I know that my Redeemer lives,” he is not denying his suffering. He is defying it.

He speaks of a Redeemer – a Go’el in Hebrew – someone who will stand up for him, vindicate him, restore what has been lost. Job doesn’t know Christ, but his words reach forward, anticipating the One who would indeed stand upon the earth, enter our suffering, and redeem it from within. When we hear Job today, we hear also the echo of Easter morning – the risen Christ, the wounded yet living one.

Faith hard-won

For those who fought in the Great War, faith was often hard-won. Letters home speak of mud and fear, of courage found in comradeship, of chaplains holding services in ruined buildings with candles flickering in the shellfire. And yet even there, they found words of hope. “Abide with me” and “Nearer my God to thee” were sung at gravesides in Flanders and Gallipoli as men buried their friends and marked the places with makeshift crosses of wood.

Faith in the Redeemer does not erase the pain – but it tells us the pain will not have the last word.

Psalm 17 gives us a prayer for those moments when the world feels unsafe. “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me under the shadow of your wings.” The psalmist isn’t naïve – he knows enemies, danger, injustice. But he holds on to a picture of divine care – God watching over his people with the tenderness of a parent who guards what is precious.

Protective wings

Here in Heywood, as in every town, families prayed this psalm in their own way. Mothers wrote to sons; wives lit lamps in windows. They prayed that protective wings might cover their loved ones – that even in the chaos of war, God might hold them close. Some prayers were answered in the way they hoped; others, in the way of eternity. But all those prayers, like the psalmist’s, rose to the same God who never looked away.

Remembrance is not about glorifying war – it’s about sanctifying memory. We remember not to rehearse violence, but to renew peace. We remember not to dwell in sorrow, but to learn what love looks like when it costs everything.

Here today, remembrance is local and it is holy. Every poppy laid, every bell tolled, is a small act of faith – a refusal to let the past become silence.

Testimony

And so, when we say: “We will remember them,” we echo Job: “Oh that my words were written… engraved in rock forever.” Because remembrance is also testimony – a witness to the truth that all lives matter, that love endures, that hope cannot die.

Job’s vision moves from dust to resurrection: “After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.” It’s a staggering statement of faith – that even beyond the grave, there will be sight, recognition, life.

The Christian faith dares to believe this: that resurrection is not only Christ’s story but our own. That those we name in remembrance are not lost to God, but live in His mercy.

As the psalmist says, “I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with beholding your likeness.” (Psalm 17:15) That awakening is our hope – the hope that those who fell at Ypres, at the Somme, at Passchendaele, and those who suffer in places marked by conflict today, will awake to see God’s face.

Resist injustice

So, what does it mean for us now to remember rightly? It means we must build the peace they died hoping for. It means we should resist every injustice that degrades the image of God in others. It means we should let their story change us – so that we become people who choose reconciliation over revenge, and compassion over indifference.

Job’s cry for justice, the psalmist’s prayer for protection – both find their answer in Christ, who bears the wounds of the world and turns them into life. And He still calls His people to be repairers of the breach, peacemakers in His name.

Today, we honour the fallen best when we let their memory lead us toward a deeper faith and a wider mercy. Job wanted his words to be written in stone. But the Word of God does something miraculous: it turns stone into seed. Every act of remembrance is a seed of peace planted in faith. Every time we speak the names of those lost, we water that seed. Every time we choose love over hate, we let that seed grow. And one day – in the resurrection that Job foresaw, and the psalmist prayed for – we will see the harvest:
the faces of those we loved, the Redeemer who stood for us, and the peace that passes all understanding.

Until that day, we remember – not only with tears, but with hope. “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth.” Amen.

‘Written in Stone’ was delivered by Ian Banks at St Margaret’s Heywood on Remembrance Sunday, 9th November 2025. It was based on Job 19:23–27 and Psalm 17:1–9.

Reference:

https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/3239#:~:text=yes%20Names%20on%20memorial%20Alderson,Materials:%20Bronze%20Listing%20information