There's a quiet power in the words we hear each Anzac Day: "At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them." It's not just ceremony. It's something deep in the bones of our national story. Something sacred.

We remember the young men who stormed the cliffs of Gallipoli. The nurses who tended the dying in muddy field hospitals. The soldiers who fought through the jungles of New Guinea, and those who stood in the deserts of North Africa, or the mountains of Afghanistan. They weren't chasing glory. They were defending home. Mateship. Freedom. Something worth dying for.

It's in this soil – this story – that the words of Jesus echo like a bugle at dawn: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:13)

That verse is more than a quote – it's the heartbeat of both the gospel and the ANZAC spirit. A love not driven by emotion or comfort, but by sacrifice. By action. By blood.

When we look to the Cross, we see it lived out perfectly. Jesus Christ – the Son of God – gave His life willingly. Not because we were good, or deserving. But because He loved us enough to take our place. As Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

He stood between us and the judgement we had earned. Just as the diggers stood between our homes and the enemies that threatened them.

It's no accident that many of those who served carried a Bible in their packs, or that chaplains followed the troops into hell itself to preach hope and bury the fallen. They understood – often in ways we've forgotten – that there is a world beyond this one. That courage isn't just muscle and willpower, but faith. Faith that life is more than survival. That eternity matters.

In our time, there's been a creeping loss of this truth. ANZAC Day is still marked, yes. But in some circles, it's been hollowed out – treated like a nostalgic war story, or a cultural relic. Easter, too, is reduced to chocolate eggs and public holidays. But scratch the surface, and something sacred still glows. Something stubborn. Something true.

The Anzac spirit and the spirit of Christ meet at the point of self-giving love. Both call us to more than comfort. More than ease. They call us to courage. Conviction. Community.

In a culture where everything is about "me," the stories of Gallipoli – and of Calvary – remind us what real strength looks like. It looks like a man carrying another across a battlefield. It looks like a medic working through the night. It looks like Jesus, beaten and bloody, walking to the Cross with the weight of the world on His back.

"The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45)

That's the kind of leadership we need again – in our homes, in our churches, in our country. Not soft-handed technocrats or soulless bureaucrats, but men and women who will stand, serve, and speak truth. Who will lead with the boldness of Christ, and the backbone of our diggers.

So as we gather this ANZAC Day at memorials and dawn services, let us honour the fallen rightly – not just by remembering, but by living in the spirit of the One who said: "Follow Me." Let us take their example and Christ's command, and run with it.

Not all of us are called to fight in war. But all of us are called to lay our lives down in some way – for our families, our neighbours, our nation, and most of all, for our God.

Because in the end, greater love is more than words on a stone or ink on a page.

It's a life laid down.
A Cross lifted high.

And a legacy worth carrying on.