(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Memorial Day”, originally shared on May 31, 2021. It was the 120th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Have you ever been to the national cemetery at
Riverside, or the one in West LA, or in Arlington Virginia? Row upon row, acre
upon acre of the graves of those who gave what Abraham Lincoln called, “the
last full measure of devotion” in the service of our country. It’s
unforgettable.
Today we’re going to reflect on what that
means.
Today is Memorial Day in our nation’s calendar. It is the unofficial
beginning of Summer, a three-day weekend, a time to fly the flag and fire up
the bar-b-que for many.
I hope that we all will take a moment to also think about the day’s
meaning and pray with gratitude for those who have died in our country’s wars.
It is also noteworthy that our country’s wars have primarily been in
defense of other counties. We are not only grateful for the preservation of our
country and of our freedoms, but for the freedoms our wars have won and kept
for other countries.
General Colin Powell once said,
“Far from being the Great Satan, I would say that we are the
Great Protector. We have sent men and women from the armed forces of the United
States to other parts of the world throughout the past century to put down
oppression. We defeated Fascism. We defeated Communism. We saved Europe in
World War I and World War II. We were willing to do it, glad to do it. We went
to Korea. We went to Vietnam. All in the interest of preserving the rights of
people. And when all those conflicts were over, what did we do? Did we stay and
conquer? Did we say, “Okay, we defeated Germany. Now Germany belongs to us? We
defeated Japan, so Japan belongs to us”? No. What did we do? We built them up.
We gave them democratic systems which they have embraced totally to their soul.
And did we ask for any land? No, the only land we ever asked for was enough
land to bury our dead. And that is the kind of nation we are.”
Midway, 307 dead. Khe Sanh, 274. Normandy,
4,414. Chosin Reservoir, 3,000. The Bulge,
19,000. Okinawa, 20,195. Guadalcanal, 7,100. Fallujah
(I/II), 122.
I remember my friend Dennis Belonger, who joined the Army right out of
high school and fought in Vietnam and died a Pfc there. I remember passing by
his open casket, my age, looking like a man. Dead. My wife Rev. Sally Welch
remembers Richard Chorlins from her high school, an Air Force Academy graduate,
a Captain who likewise died in Vietnam. We both remember Staff Sergeant Nathan
Thompson, a member of the church I served in San Dimas who served 2 tours in
Iraq, became an Army recruiter in Pomona and died while on active duty.
My grandfather on my mother’s side was one of 6 brothers to serve at the
same time during World War I. They all survived. My grandfather on my father’s
side served in the Cavalry. He told us he was a pilot in the Cavalry. They told
him to pile it over here and then they told him to pile it over there. My
father served in the Army. He went ashore at Normandy. He received a Bronze
Star and a Purple Heart and almost never talked about it. War changes people,
men as well as women. All Marines are first taught to be infantry; I served
after that training in the Marine Corps in non-combat positions in the States
as the war in Vietnam was concluding.
Today, in addition to the risks and wounds of war we talk of moral
injury. The wounds that cannot be seen but are just as real as any loss to the
body.
Sacrifices have been made and today we honor and give thanks for those
who have made them.
There are so many people you know and we know, and so many, many others
who we don’t know. Each one of them was a brother, a sister, a spouse, a
mother, a father, a friend. And we are grateful for their sacrifice and what it
means for our country and for the world.
Jesus said, in John 15:13-15:
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down
one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command
you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does
not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I
have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”
Paul expands on that in his letter to the Romans:
“ For while we were still weak, at the right time
Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a
righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare
to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners
Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified
by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if
while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son,
much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.”
And it
all comes together in the familiar, most memorized verse in the Bible, John
3:16:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only
Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal
life.”
There is no passport required when you go to worship God. God died for
everyone, including our enemies. Christians have sought to serve the work of
God in the world for thousands of years, and we have listened to this from Matthew
22:15-22:
“Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him
in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the
Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of
God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not
regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful
to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice,
said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show
me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he
said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The
emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things
that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they
heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.”
Lutherans believe in Martin Luther’s Two Kingdom theology, that God
works both through the Kingdom of God in the Church and in the Kingdom of this
world thorough good government.
So, whether in the Church or in the world we are formed and guided by
God.
Today, we remember those who have died in our nations wars to make this
world a better place.
And we thank God for the gift of Jesus Christ,
fully God and fully human being, whose death on the cross made this world and
our eternity a better place.
“For God
so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in
him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
