26th April, 2005

Dr MARK TRONSON

When the Turkish leg of our 'Seven Churches of The Revelation' itinerary was in the planning stages, as a group of Australians, Gallipoli was insisted upon.

It so happened that an American evangelical was part of this process who could not fathom the integral importance to us of including Gallipoli. But there was something in my soul pushing me to discover why Gallipoli was so strangely important to me.

Having set foot on Anzac Cove and moreover, given the privilege of speaking at a memorial service at Gallipoli, I discovered three essentials in my reflection.

The first is that I’m an Australian Christian. Whatever culture we’re in, the living Messiah speaks into the hearts of men and women regardless of the cultural mores. None of us experiences life in a vacuum of community history. Jesus never told the Roman centurion to cease being a Roman.

GALLIPOLI REVISITED: Mark Tronson's painting 'Gallipoli before dawn', created after his visit to the site in 1999.   "As a Christian the Biblical passages within the Anzac ceremony reach deep within the well springs of my heart with images of love, sacrifice and freedom."

2005 is six years after our 1999 visit to Gallipoli, and in spite of some state legislation and federal multi-cultural policy, at the official dawn service ceremony at Gallipoli (and similarly the dawn service where I live) Bible passages were a clear and an unequivocal part of the program.

I’m an Australian and a Christian. The history of my country bears out the nature of its Christian roots and its symbols.

The nation comes together one day a year in a common cause of quiet reflection on what our fathers and our father’s fathers did in all our military endeavours in a united experience of loss, grief, heartache, disbelief, pride and sobriety.

In this I am an Australian with jealous dignity. As a Christian the Biblical passages within the Anzac ceremony reach deep within the well springs of my heart with images of love, sacrifice and freedom.

The second essential to my reflections is the ingredient of purpose. The Australian of 1915 landing on Gallipoli had a military purpose in mind. Australians and New Zealanders were invaders.

Looking up those craggy mountains toward Lone Pine, one cannot but be moved as to the sheer hopelessness of the expedition. It raised within me a frightening righteous anger.

Although they failed, they nonetheless had a purpose, and it was to this purpose that everything was linked.

In my view, this has been one of the missing ingredients in trying to understand it all. In the 1985 television series The Anzacs, the Australian nurse Kate Baker (played by the late Megan Williams) shows her frustration, anguish and bewilderment over why her wounded fiancé Martin Barrington (played by Andrew Clarke) insisted on going back to the front to be with his mates.

Their original purpose was to conqueror. But once on Gallipoli and experiencing first hand the impossibility of achieving the original objectives, the purpose changed. It had become that of being with your mates.

As death increasingly surrounded them, the purpose altered slightly. It was to protect your mates; never to let your mates down. Your mate’s life became more precious than your own.

As time went on, this purpose shifted ground again once. It became to see it through (particularly once they got to the Western Front) in order that you could be the one to tell your fallen mate, from within the secret depths of your heart, that you finally won through in spite of all the terrible and unspeakable adversity.

To me, walking over Gallipoli, these varying senses of purpose became self-evident. Irrationally, I wanted to re plan the offensive and do it all over again, and this time...

This ingredient of 'purpose' became spiritually overwhelming; this “mateship” that can only be articulated in that quintessential Australian verbal jousting that revels in dry humour (such as when the Australian cricketers nick-named Pakistani cricketer Javid Miandad “Dave” after Dad & Dave) and classic opposites (such as "Bluey" for a red haired mate) and in hyperbole (such as being "in the grip of the grape").

This spirit of the Anzac, its economy of prose, in my view exists in parallel within the Scriptures, particularly in the Psalms (think of Psalm 23: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...") and in mysteries of Gospel truth (such as the Holy Ghost as a comforter). Moreover, it was exemplified by the military chaplains' unforgettable roles (the late Patsy Adam-Smith’s book The Anzacs has a remarkable chapter on the padres).

The third essential is the nature of The Ode (the fourth stanza of Laurence Binyan's poem For the Fallen, recited in Anzac Day remembrance ceremonies) and the intimacy in those most well-known lines:

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

I have a photograph of my maternal grand-father, circa 1918. He remains 24. He was killed as a pilot at the end of Word War I when parachutes were not issued in case the pilot was tempted to jump out.

It’s the nature of death. The Ode spells it out. To us, the wrinkles of life inevitably come, as does the graying of hair and the aging of weary bones and illness that produces limitations.

Jesus the Messiah is not an aged man of 2000 years. Rather, in my mind’s eye he is in the prime of his life, and moreover He is Risen. He remains 33. This is my confidence and assurance as a Christian. I too will live forever in Christ.

Reading the ages on the headstones at Lone Pine Cemetery of young Australians whose names are so familiar, yes, brought some morbidity, and on reflection, there was a strange and wonderful releasing of my spirit to an eternal page.

As an artist, painting my experience of Gallipoli was capturing the pre-dawn light with its multi-reflections of history and the assurance of a new day. Hence its title Before Dawn.

The Distinguished Rev Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister, the chairman of Well-Being Australia and the Australian Cricket Chaplain for 22 years. In August 2004 Mark was awarded the “I & II Timothy Australian Episcopos Citation: Bishop of Christian Leadership” for distinguished Christian leadership.