I have great difficulty with this article. It seems that a parallel is being made between the events of the passion of Christ all those years ago and the death of soldiers in Gallipoli.Indeed, we are told that that sacrifice was the beginning of a new reality! While I am quite convinced that the world was created anew on Easter Sunday and is continually being created each Sunday I have reservations that such a reality was created out of that awful battle.

Surely the thousands of dead are not generators of a new reality but are a reminder that we will continue to go on our dark way even in the light of Easter Sunday. What happens in war is the senseless slaughter of life, the cutting short of many lives that will no longer proceed towards the light of God.

Anzac day is the closest thing we have to a national religion. But it is a mournful religion, full of tears and dread. There is no joy in it, no new life, just a boastful claim to nationhood forged in human blood. Its association with the church is wrong because the church proclaims a quite different gospel. Jesus took the way of non-violence, he was not armed when he was arrested. He did not try to kill his accusers but called God to forgive them. This was the one who told us to love our enemies, not kill them.

This article does not wash on so many counts.

Peter Sellick

Perhaps the layout obscured the last line: "a man with a donkey symbolising courage, service and sacrifice: wherever can they have got that idea?"
Easter precedes and preconditions our understanding of "our" world.
Since the Gallipoli landings it has informed our appreciation of how people deal with suffering and sacrifice.
Simpson is no divine, but he summons the recollection that Christ is in all of us if we allow it, illuminating even the darkest places.
But if we fail to see Christ in the world and try to trap Easter in a purely ecclesiastial setting, we limit our connection with the Gospel.
Anzac Day ceremonies have evolved to incorporate the Easter message of death and rebirth. The Last Post symbolises death, the silence the grave, and reveille the resurrection. It's solemn but not gloomy, and it is attended by Christian prayers. After the ceremony we celebrate life - two-up, barbecues, even the odd libation.
And the liturgy is delivered by a bugle - a military communications system become a tool of solemn reflection.
Swords into ploughshares, perhaps? Now, wherever did they get that idea?
David Cusworth

For the rest of us that have a our feet n the ground and a firm grip on reality.. The key thing to remember here is the events of ww1 happened. Your story is just that a story as real as any hollywood zombie movie and not even orignall you copied off the Summarians.

War..killing..human-culling..blood..and after its all over...there, there...now its all better. Dont you just love our religions:)

The only true Anzac's were the ones that defended our country........all the rest died like the Scottish solder's did for other lands, was for nothing.

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CDwQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DM8AeV8Jbx6M&ei=b8W3TZLSOYPTrQfEtIzEDQ&usg=AFQjCNEYqsLFidJ9Otedb1At-Usf_foGLQ
What a waste.

Population control is the answer....NOT WAR.

LEAP