Remembering

"Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent.  But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you."  (Revelation 3:3)

This weekend, we will attend parades, services, and family gatherings to both remember and celebrate.  We remember those who sacrificed their lives for our freedoms, and we celebrate that freedom.  As the saying goes, with freedom comes responsibility, and one of those responsibilities should be remembering.

Most of us understand that the freedoms we enjoy in this country are due to countless sacrifices throughout history that continue today.  Those who died in battle, those who were injured, those who kept the homefront afloat, and those who lost spouses, parents, children and siblings along the way... It seems they have all been swept into nice, neat, typewritten summaries in textbooks collecting dust on shelves.  Too easily lost and forgotten are the intimate details of those lives, the circumstances of those sacrifices, and the many ways (both subtle and profound) that life and human history have been forever changed by them.  It doesn't seem quite respectful or patriotic enough to simply recognize that.  We should dare to expose ourselves to those stories, to allow their collective weight to soak into our bones.

Not only is it important to seek and to appreciate the full story of our history as a nation, it is also important to learn from that history.  If our past is an important part of how and why we've arrived at where we are, then so too is it an important part of where we go from here.  It is one of the best ways we can honor those who gave their lives for us.

The same holds true for the sacrifice God made for our ultimate freedom.  Over 200 verses in the Bible contain the word "remember."  Some of those verses call on us to remember God's sacrifice of His Son on the cross, but many of them call on us to remember the plight of mankind throughout human history - what happened to folks when they chose to remember and keep God's commands, and what happened to folks when they chose to forget or deny God.  There's a very good reason that all those stories are included in the Bible.  It's so that we can better understand our ultimate purpose in life - to love and to serve the Lord, to remember Him.  Nothing could be more important.

All of the Bible is about our Lord Jesus.  As we are all part of God's creation, all of our lives, our stories, and our choices are ultimately about Him.  Amid all the festivities this Memorial Day weekend, let us remember to...remember that.

To all of you reading this who have served our country and have sacrificed for the freedoms we enjoy, my sincerest thanks to you.  God bless you.