Memorial Day

As this Memorial Day draws to a close, thoughts of freedom rise to the front of my mind, along with rememberances of sacrifices, both recent and ancient. It was in this state of being Sunday that I was reminded of Romans 6 and 7, and various other passages throughout Scripture, and I thought I would share those with you.

First, however, I want to call attention to this Memorial Monday. It is a day that is meant to remember those who gave their lives for our freedom (many of you know where I am going to go with this). As we, the nation of the United States, have set aside this day for this specific purpose, it throws our lives into contrast with the rest of the year. What defines America to the rest of the world? We hope that it is freedom, but I fear what we show is hatred, loud talk, egocentrisim, and a state of comfortability that has turned to complacency. I hate to say that those are the qualities I see most from Americans.

Think about it, in this "land of freedom", people kill over stupid things. In this "land of freedom", people sit idly by and expect others to help them. In this "land of freedom", our primary focus is ourselves. As I watched the History Channel's Gettysburg tonight, I was struck once again with this thought. In 1776, we officially declared our nation free, and we eventually won our independence. In the years to follow, we fleshed out a working governmental system, that is still in place. But, please, think about what our founding fathers would have said about the state of the nation today. I think it would be something like this, "We didn't put our lives at risk, so that you could become complacent. We didn't sacrifice so that you could focus on yourself. We didn't give you freedom so you could kill your neighbor." (This thought was much more streamlined in my head.)

The same can be said about Christians. We hope that people see love and freedom, but I feel that they most likely see hatred, hypocrisy, egocentrism, and contented complacency. We have a couple days a year where we try real hard and remember Christ's sacrifice (Christmas and Easter, our Memorial Day and 4th of July), but what happens, instead, is that our lives are thrown into contrast by those days and we see who we really are.

We have freedom in Christ, but, for most Christians, this leads to a life of comfortability or contented complacency. We think, "Oh, I can do whatever I want, Jesus will forgive me." Even though he will, should we think that way? No!

Paul writes in Romans 6, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! We died to sin, how can we live in it any longer?" Paul is making it real clear, here. Christ died for our sins so we don't have to, and though his grace will cover our sins, we shouldn't live in sin and do whatever we want. Peter writes in 1 Peter 2, "Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as slaves of God."

It's plain and simple. In Christ, we have the freedom to do whatever we want, but here is the bottom line, that makes a mockery of Christ's sacrifice. When we live our lives focused solely on ourselves, that makes a mockery of His death.

I still cannot separate this truth from the current America. In America, we have the freedom to say what we feel, write what we want, or even carry a gun if we feel like it. When what we say, though, is hateful and sews discord, I think it makes a mockery of the sacrifices that hundreds of thousands of soldiers have made. And when people use that gun they carry to shoot another person, just because they don't agree, or because they live two streets in the wrong direction, or whatever, I know it makes a mockery of solders' deaths.

What does the way you live say about you? First of all, does your life make a mockery of Christ's death? Secondly, does it make a mockery of the reason why our soldiers' fight?