"Greater love has no man, than to lay down his life for a friend."
More than 53,000 Americans died on World War I battlefields. Nearly 300,000 in World War II. More than 33,000 in Korea. More than 47,000 in Vietnam.
On this Memorial Day, there is a chance of more American deaths in the Middle East.
The numbers are seldom accurate for battlefield deaths. That itself speaks to the horror and inhuman quality of what happens when countries collide, when warrior after warrior falls and becomes a number, maybe one uncounted.
But no matter the final total, each was one. And that one counted to friends and family. Counted more than just about anything else. Someone was handed a folded flag. Teary eyes heard Taps. Real brothers and fathers and sons died.
“Greater love hath no man…”
It’s a good day to remember that someone died for us. Some of those men and women, we will never know. Heroic strangers. Wartime death, the ultimate sacrifice to freedom, should inspire us all, through love, to help and heal each other with goodness and understanding.
And today and every day’s a good day to remember that through one good man’s death, through His blood, an otherwise fatal and eternal debt was paid, one that would lead to the end of war and death. Every day’s a good day to remember we were all bought with a price. Someone felt each of us was worth dying for. Until I could grasp, at least a little, the meaning of and reality of Christ’s death, I couldn’t grasp the gospel, which is not about what I can do, but about what’s already been done for me.
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