GROWING SEEDS: Remember

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.” 

—John 15:13

It's Memorial Day.  

As Americans, we know it as the first long holiday weekend to grill burgers on the dock, fire up the Jetski and to sleep late on Monday.  But why do most of us head into the Tuesday after Memorial Day without having given an ounce of thought to the meaning behind the significance of this weekend?

I'm guilty of this. I've never had a friend or relative come back in a pine box from war. I've not stood with a young widow at the foot of her husband's grave while holding the hand of her small child. I've just seen it on the news and read about it in books. It's never been a reality in my personal little world....fortunately.

Growing up, my Mom dragged us kids to the cemetery every chance she got. She would open up the trunk of the Buick, pull out her bottle of Windex and paper towels, knee down in front of the tombstone of her parents, and proceed to spray the granite with vigor. She would tell stories of her parents as us kids used the concrete curb around the family plots as a balance beam....yawned in boredom.....and waited impatiently for her to finish this ritual.  

My Mom knew the importance of Remembering.

And as Christians, we should have the importance of remembering etched solidly in our hearts. After all, Christians are "memorial people" because our whole faith depends on remembering. "Those who persevere into the future are those who remember the gracious past."* That's why God has surrounded us with memorials. The entire Bible is a Memorial.....Sabbath, the Lord's Supper, Baptism, Christmas, Easter.......

So friends, as we Remember on this Memorial Day....do it with overflowing gratitude for the men and women who sacrificed everything they had....who hugged their families goodbye and never returned. And remember how Christ did the very same thing for you. It's called Grace.

Let us make every day, as long as it is called Today, a Memorial Day.

* Jon Bloom