Arlington is full of memorials reminding us all of the cost of freedom; they also remind us of the demand of it.
Those headstones remind us of the more than one million Americans who have given to the last full measure. – over 100,000 in World War I; over 400,000 in World War II; almost 40,000 in Korea; over 58,000 in Vietnam and over 5,000 have been killed in action since 9/11.
I was impressed by the comments made by a recent Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff speaking a few years ago at a Memorial Day Wreath Laying ceremony at Arlington. Rather than leading the people to consider how they died General Dunsford said of those man and women who are remembered there:
“It’s how these men and women lived that is important. It is how they lived that makes us remember them. In life, these individuals chose to be something bigger than themselves. They chose to accept hardship and great personal risk. They were people who truly embodied the most important values and traditions of our nation.”
The general concluded by challenging those in attendance to leave “with the resolve to strengthen their commitment to our nation and the values for which it stands.”
Today we not only remember those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom as a nation but we also remember the One who died to liberate all men from a tyranny even more sinister than that of a Hitler, Stalin or a Bin-Laden.
When we look upon His cross we think not only about the way He died but about the way He lived, the truths He taught and the purpose in His coming. Even more, we remember that the grave DID NOT have the last word but Jesus rose again and will one day, as promised, return for those who trust in Him.
I mentioned earlier that there was a demand of freedom upon those who enjoy it; that demand of freedom is (in my mind) loyalty to the One who has provided it and sustained it. It is a loyalty that will not shrink back or compromise but will stand fast and refuse to allow anything to steal away that which was gained at such a great cost.
Considering the life of the Lord today, I challenge you as General Dunsford challenged those in attendance at Arlington to strengthen your commitment to the Lord and to the freedom that He procured at the cost of His life for you.
Our gratitude today is to those who fought for our nation and paid the ultimate price for freedom with their life blood and to Him who fought for our souls, paying the ultimate price for our eternal freedom with His blood.
One of the great paradoxes of the Christian faith is that the servants of Jesus are also free and not just free a little but free to the uttermost.
In reality we exchanged masters when we came to trust in Jesus Christ. But the “bondage” to sin to which we formerly submitted is not the same as the relationship we have with Jesus.
“And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” Romans 6:18 (NKJV)
Jesus Christ set us free from our former task-master to live in a new way and for a new reason. As sinners we lived for the gratification of our own flesh but because we received salvation through Jesus Christ our desire turned to a desire to please and glorify Him who saved us (John 15:8, Philippians 1:11, [2 Timothy 2:4], 1Peter 4:11).
Our slavery comes at the cost of a life…as slaves of sin, our own life is required resulting not only in physical but spiritual death which is eternal separation from God but as slaves of God (Roman’s 6:22) the cost is the life and precious blood of Christ (1 Corinthians 7:23, 1 Peter 1:18-19) resulting in eternal life.
“And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:11–12 (NKJV)
Because Jesus set us free in such a way we love Him (1 John 4:19) and our servitude is not seen by us as bondage (1 John 5:3) rather it becomes our greatest joy.
All of us want to live life to the full and will spend a lifetime trying to make such abundant living their reality but Jesus made a point to His disciples in (John 8:31-36) that I think those looking for such a life should consider:
He said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free…Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
To what have you presented yourself as a servant to obey? Sex? Money? Fame? All of these seek only to TAKE your life but only Jesus GIVES life “and that more abundantly.” In Him, you will be free indeed….
Since the beginning of our nation and of western civilization centuries earlier, freedom has been at the core of it all.
Freedom ~ that idea which is built on the back of both faith and reason; faith because freedom apart from faith lacks morality and is reduced to nothing more than hedonistic pursuits of “whatever I want,” and reason or rational thought because it considers more than one’s own self interests. The kind of freedom that Jesus Christ affirmed in His conversations with those He met which allowed people to choose to follow Him or not, or to act either properly or improperly as they chose.
Mankind however, has always pursued freedom, autonomy or self rule by casting off or ignoring every authority or voice of authority including the authority of God Himself. Humans have a rebellious spirit…in our fallen nature, we have a spirit of anarchy within us – we want freedom and we want it to the full measure. To achieve it, people are willing to throw off both the voice of reason and the voice of faith.
We WANT independence!!!
We WANT autonomy!!!
But we can’t HANDLE it, because apart from faith and reason we will take what we want FROM one another even up to each others very life. In the name of independence and autonomy we will only do what seems “right in our own eyes” and we’ve already seen where that leads (see Judges [21:25]).
The gender dispute of these days seeks to throw off the voice of reason and of faith. The issue of abortion seeks to throw off the voice of reason and of faith. Much of what we hear being argued for by junior leaders in Washington and the sophmorically wise in our universities is an effort to throw off the voice of reason and the voice of faith.
Listen, you can do that. You can ignore God, ignore reason, ignore faith; you can chase after whatever you want but ignoring the voice does not nullify the authority behind it nor the consequences that come for doing life your way (Proverbs 14:12, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Revelation 20:11-15).
It may be a dark saying but I encourage you to think about it…
In our nation, as in many others statues are erected to
great men and women in memorial of their great contribution to their nation and
in many cases to the world. Most often memorials are erected AFTER the person
or event being memorialized has come and gone. Around our nation and world there are a number
of memorials set in place to remember what – war? Do the monuments to our WW I
veterans at Pershing Park in DC, the WW II memorial, the Korean War Veterans
Memorial on the national mall also in DC or the various Vietnam Memorials in
our nation CELEBRATE war?!
NO!!!
They memorialize men and women who rose above fear and personal concern for safety during those conflicts to stand for something greater – their nation, their countrymen and the freedom we ALL hold dear. Those memorials do not celebrate blood shed but rather sacrifice for the greater good and they serve as a reminder of the COST of freedom.
in 1970 Crosby, Stills Nash and Young recorded a song in the
wake of the Kent State Shootings called “Find
the Cost of Freedom.” It included the countercultural anthem titled “Ohio” written
by Neil Young which was meant to protest America’s ongoing presence in Vietnam
(specifically the Cambodian campaign); it contains a lyric that verbally encapsulates
the PRICE of freedom and simply states:
“Find the cost of freedom buried in the ground.”
Sometimes, standing for something will cost you everything –
this IS the cost of freedom.
So, let me ask you, does the way we as individual citizens
of America use our freedoms sometimes degrade the cost paid to obtain it?
I know that the remainder of this post may offend some of my
Libertarian friends but do we have a responsibility as citizens to use that for
which such a priceless value has been paid wisely and carefully?
This is, of course a page given to Christian commentary and
as such this would be a good place to insert a verse from the Bible to consider
in light of my assertion. Consider what Paul wrote in (1 Corinthians 10:23-24):
“All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all
things are lawful for me, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own,
but each one the other’s well-being.”
As a Roman citizen, Paul had freedoms like we do in America – the Apostle was free to do what ever he wanted as a citizen of Rome. But as a free citizen of heaven, made so by the precious blood and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, other considerations had to be observed, namely the effect his choices would have upon those he was trying to reach for Jesus Christ. In essence, Paul said, “I am free to do anything, but not everything that I’m free to do ought to be done.” And so, there is a tension for the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ between what we’re free to do and what will be beneficial to others and honoring to God.
When we willfully disregard the direct revelation of God in
His word and sin, our actions devalue the price paid to obtain our freedom and
standing before Almighty God and we are seen as treating the blood of Jesus,
the blood which paid our sin debt to God in full (Colossians 2:14) as “a
common thing” (Hebrews 10:29). Furthermore, our actions work against
the efforts of God’s Spirit in the lives of our children and weaker brethren in
the faith.
As Christians, sometimes our actions do work to degrade the cost paid to make us free but again let me ask you, does the way we use our freedoms as individual American citizens sometimes degrade the price paid to make us free?
“How?” You might ask.
For one, the students at Kent in 1970 were free to protest but not threaten or violently attack local business owners and residents who did not join in their protest. For another, when people born in America willfully burn or trample the flag representative of the freedoms which we enjoy and under which countless men and women gave their lives – the cost of freedom is degraded. And then there is this recent news story about the Vietnam Memorial on the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Boston where it has been reported that the monument has been defaced by graffiti including swastikas and the destruction of numerous American flags: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/vietnam-war-veterans-monument-defaced-ahead-memorial-day-63253992. These are a few in a growing list of the ways that some citizens of this great country have degraded the sacrifices made and the cost which was paid for our mutual freedoms.
As I wrap it up, I was just thinking about the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. The Tomb of the Unknowns as it has officially been known since 1921 stands as a memorial to those men and women of the armed forces who died in combat but whose remains cannot be identified.
I was just thinking about how the name “Unknowns” fits these men and women who paid the ultimate price for their country and their countrymen – most hero’s that I’ve ever heard of didn’t do what they did for recognition….they would tell you that they simply did what needed to be done.
I was thinking of the vast sea of grave markers which surround the Tomb of the Unknowns, each of them with a name and a symbol of their personal faith or life. Their names are common everyday names like Jack, Frank, Joe, Pete, Tim, Mike, Mary, Liz, Ralph etc. but they were not common men and women. Some of them were farmers and farmers sons, cowboys, business men, young men straight out of high school, wives, daughters…..some enlisted, many were drafted; all of them mattered to someone and ultimately because of what they did they ALL matter to the nation.
These uncommon men and women, like those who survived them through the many wars and conflicts exhibited uncommon valor, uncommon patriotism and uncommon bravery as they faced a common enemy. From every walk of life they came, united in purpose and willing up front to lay it all down.
My friends, it has been said that, “Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you; Jesus Christ and the American G. I. One died for your soul; the other for your freedom.” We have all benefited or stand to benefit from the uncommon blood of both those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom as Americans and the blood of the Son of God Jesus Christ – may each of us live lives which remember and respect their sacrifices.
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