Memorial Day morning, 2020, while doing some laundry, I overheard my wife listening to a podcast. It seemed the speaker first addressed the meaning of the holiday, remembering soldiers who died to preserve our freedom. He then suggested that our best response was not to mourn, but to make the most of our lives.
As I thought about that idea later in the morning, it resonated with me, that we honor those who died for our freedom when we aspire to live a life worthhaving been saved.
Generally I only websurf when specifically looking for something, but curious about the origin of Memorial Day, I conducted a search. Among the results I found an article focused on what to best wear on Memorial Day to appear chic. (I believe the suggestion included a striped shirt and a denim jacket.) The stark contrast in thought between this and the earlier podcast was striking. One person encouraged me to remember the heroes for which the holiday exists, to inculcate noble values and to live a life of purpose, and the other seemed merely concerned with appearances and what to wear.
As I considered men laying down their lives in sacrificial service, I couldn’t help but recall Someone who fought the greatest enemy of all on my behalf, and won the keys of hell and death at the cost of His life. Jesus died for my freedom, and for what?
Somehow I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t so I would sit around worrying about what outfit to wear! I read in Galatians 5:1 that it was for freedom that Christ has set me free. He doesn’t want me to live in bondage to anything, after He died to break the chains that held me. The sacrifice wasn’t something to be taken lightly, as the Word says,
…you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19).
We all inherited a futile way of life that was passed down to us all the way from Adam. A way that involved self-reliance, self-determination, self-centeredness and slavery. Jesus came to lift that dead-end approach to life from us, offering a new paradigm of a vibrant relationship with God, in which He calls us His own:
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).
So as I reflected on all this—first on the many lives lost on battlefields, at sea, and in the air over the years to protect our freedom to live as we wish; then on the sacrifice of Jesus, providing us an escape from every kind of bondage—I found myself inspired to walk in a worthy manner, availing myself of the grace so freely available to me, to manifest Jesus.
