Thought for Today
Genesis 2:7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
Psalm 8:4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? 5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
Mark 10:45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
John 15:12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.
“Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for honoring and mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. It is observed on the last Monday of May.
It is a day for visiting cemeteries and memorials to mourn the military personnel who died in the line of duty. Volunteers will place American flags on the graves of those military personnel in national cemeteries. Others such as family and friends will also come to lay flowers on the graves of those who died in the US military.
Memorial Day is also considered the unofficial beginning of summer.” (Wikipedia)
I cannot decide which is more regrettable, that we must set aside a day to commemorate loss of life or that for so many, today is more the “unofficial beginning of summer.” I believe that all loss of human life is a tragedy. The fact that so many lives have been lost since God first breathed the breath of life into our ancestor to make him a living being is sad. Every generation since then has recreated its own version of the adjacent Biblical story of Cain and Abel.
Today, politicians will make countless ‘pilgrimages’ to cemeteries, place countless wreaths on memorials, endlessly blather platitudes . . . and beaches and campgrounds everywhere will be overcrowded, packed with celebrations of warmer weather and few considerations of those who put themselves into harm’s way.
Our ancestors-in-the-faith understood our nature well enough to acknowledge God’s gift of life in the same book of the Bible where they recounted the first tragic loss of a God-given life. Are we somehow doomed to continuously repeat Cain vs. Abel in every succeeding generation?
Since Genesis, the main difference over all those millennia has been the ‘advancement’ of the technology of death. Presumably, Cain picked up a rock and used it to kill his brother Abe or used some similar technique to deprive him of his God-given life. Today we have much more ‘advanced’ methods to kill much larger assemblies of God-given life.
We rightly set aside today to honor U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. The recent pandemic brought to our attention all the others who also put themselves in harm’s way to serve and protect the rest of us. First responders, police, fire fighters and countless others who serve and protect . . . and sometimes lay down their lives for us.
I did not serve in the military. To the best of my knowledge, no member of my family has died while in the U.S. military; although, having had ancestors on both sides of the Civil War, I am not certain. I have seen pictures and television stories from Arlington National Cemetery. I have conducted funerals at Houston’s Veterans Cemetery. I have seen the rows of white crosses and Stars of David. I have seen broadcasts from Normandy and other European battlefronts and the rows of crosses and Stars there.
Sadly, we know the truth of Thomas Jefferson’s words, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” As a Christian, however, I know the hope of The Lord’s Prayer. I pray often “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When will we get there? I do not know. I do know that today I will offer an extra prayer of thanksgiving to God for those patriots who have paid that ultimate price and who will continue to do so until God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
Stay safe, thank God, trust God,
Pastor Ray