For a Sanctified Memorial Day

by Pastor Dick

Memorial Day is a day set aside to honor those who have died serving in the Unites States military.

It is a celebration and honor of those we call heroes.  It is a remembrance of that for which the heroes died: especially the American cause of liberty and justice for all.

I downloaded a number of quotes of those who would remind us of the importance of this day for our nation and for us.   

Here are some:

“May we never forget freedom isn’t free.” –Unknown

“Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men hve died to win them.”—President Franklin D Roosevelt

“Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it.  It flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it.” –Unknown

“Home of the free, because of the brave.” –Unknown

“We are forever indebted to those who have given their live that we might be free.” –President Ronald Reagan

“On this day, take time to remember those who have fallen.  But on every day after, do more; put the freedoms they died for to greater and nobler uses.” –Richelle E. Goodrich, Author

A few years ago popular preacher and author Kevin DeYoung wrote an article answering the question “Why Christians Should Give Thanks for Memorial Day.”

In this article Rev. DeYoung lists five reasons why we should as Christians give thanks for Memorial Day.  I agree with four of them.  With one I take exception.

Here are the four I/we can agree with:

*Being a soldier is not a sub-Christian activity.

*Military service is one of the most common metaphors in the New Testament to describe the Christian life.

*Love of country can be a good thing.

*I believe the facts of history will demonstrate that on the whole, the United States military has been a force for good in the world.

Here is the one with which I take exception:

          *The life of a soldier can demonstrate the highest Christian virtues.

Under this point DeYoung writes: “Soldiers in battle are called on to show courage, daring, service, shrewdness, endurance, hard work, faith, and obedience.”  Then this: “These virtues fall into the “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just” category that deserve our praise.”

DeYoung is referring, of course, to Philippians 4:8.  That was our theme for House Visitation this year.  But the Rev. is not quite right here, even quite wrong.  For the things of good report, the virtue, the praise things on which Philippian and all believers are to meditate and then to do, are things of the Apostle himself: “those things you have learned and received and heard and saw in me.”  Besides, so meditating, so doing these things, following the example of the Apostle, yields the fruit of the favorable presence of God: “And the God of peace will be with you” (v.9).

Memorial Day is for the honoring of men and their courage and their offering the ultimate sacrifice one can make for a nation.  It serves to remind us Americans of the cost of freedom and “the American way.”  But nations are not the one nation under God, the Church is.  Freedoms men and women fight and die for are not the freedom from sin our Savior died for.  Virtuous soldiers are not necessarily righteous.  And many who have died on the battlefield have not lived and died in Christ, through faith in him.  They may by their death have helped to gain or preserve earthly liberties, even a world of them, but in death they have lost their soul, having lived and died in the communion of the vain and the vanity, the vain peaces, the vain wars, the vain freedoms, the vain virtues, the vain causes of a world without God.

Be thankful, Christian, for Memorial Day.  It is a   time to reflect upon freedoms we have in America and soldiers laying down their lives to preserve these freedoms.  But meditate, focus, be centered always on Christ and the spiritual blessings for which he died.  Heroes are one thing.  A Savior is another.  Patriotism is one thing.  Having one’s citizenship in heaven, willing to die for truth, loyal and committed to the kingdom not of this world…is another.

So let us gather today as Christians in worship on the Lord’s Day.  Then tomorrow, let us gather as Christian Americans, thankful for Memorial Day and the freedom to live unmolested and the many opportunities to preach the gospel in our country.

And may the God of peace be with us.