Don’s Blog
May 26, 2010

“And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my
body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me’" (Luke 22:19).

Across our great land over this next weekend thousands of gatherings will take place in small towns
and great cities, in city halls and town cemeteries, in sight of a tiny few and in front of national TV cameras.
This is Memorial Day weekend.

My high school marching band became a perennial part of this gathering in Creighton, Nebraska. The
brief program at the city hall included patriotic songs from the audience, from a few choirs, and from our
band. I remember enduring the suffocating heat on stage in those stifling band uniforms waiting for the
speaker to finish!  Then we marched to the cemetery-- band, VFW members including young and old
soldiers, the VFW ladies auxiliary, Boy and Girl Scouts -- for the laying of the wreath, the gun salute,and,
the playing of “Taps”.

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the hills, from the lake, from the sky.
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

Thanks and praise, For our days,
’Neath the sun, ‘Neath the stars, ‘Neath the sky,
As we go, This we know, God is nigh.

I returned to become part of the audience for that gathering several years later. Same place, same
songs, nearly the same participants. A few more old soldiers had died. What had changed was the
growing sense of meaning and purpose of it all for me. There is but one purpose – to honor the dead,
to honor the men and women who gave their lives for my freedom.

Abraham Lincoln was summoned to the bloodied hills and grasses near Gettysburg,Pennsylvania, to
dedicate that awful place where 51,000 men died in a bloody battle of rebellion. But Lincoln saw the
futility of the living attempting to dedicate the place of the dead. He said, in part:

“We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final
resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and
proper that we should do this.

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground.  
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to
add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here,but it can never forget
what they did here. It is for us the living, rather,to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

This article began with another kind of memorial, the one Jesus commissioned for himself. With the
taking of the bread and the drinking of the cup, we are called to remember him and his sacrifice. I
sometimes find the parallels between our Memorial Day and Jesus’ Memorial Meal uncanny.

Many have no idea of the meaning and purpose of Memorial Day, other than the first great weekend
of the summer to camp and ski and fish. We are raising a generation which has only a distant connection
with the past, little recollection of history, and almost no understanding of or appreciate for the price of
freedom. Mostly grey hairs attend Memorial Day observances these days.

For many, Jesus’ Memorial Meal is just another religious act. A woman who recently visited EBC declared
that she had never before been taught the significance of the Lord’s Supper,even though she had taken it
regularly for years.

As Abe Lincoln so aptly spoke, we cannot further consecrate the place, the memorial of the dead beyond
their brave act of offering their own life. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life
for his friend” (John 15:13).

Our somber music, our celebrative songs, our tearful readings, our careful planning – nothing can make or
create a more meaningful memorial than simply taking the bread and drinking the cup, simple acts to
remind us of Jesus’ sacrificial death.

The great difference, of course, is this.While thousands and thousands of soldiers have given their lives
to buy our freedom here in America, a freedom that remains tenuous, fragile, and temporary at best, Jesus’
one sacrifice for sins forever (Hebrews 10:11-12)paid for the freedom of all who receive his gift.

One year ago Rosi and I stood, along with our missionary friends Keith and Jeannette, in the largest
American cemetery on foreign soil in metro Manila, The Philippines.That was a sacred moment. We
had just visited the island of Corregidor,scene of bloody and horrible fighting. In a downtown Manila
store, an elderly gentleman thanked Rosi for the freedom our United States had given him.

Some churches celebrate the Lord’s Supper every Sunday, some once a month or once a quarter or even
once a year. Some never celebrate it. “Do this to remember,” Jesus said, because I am so very prone to forget.

But I can come to my Lord every day in grateful praise for his great gift of life.Every day I can remember
his sacrifice. Every day I can thank him.Every day each act of obedience can become an act of worship,
praise, and thanksgiving for his unspeakable gift. Remember Him!

Pastor Don