Memorial Day

 Tomorrow is Memorial Day.  The words themselves express the purpose - to serve as a day to remember.  To remember the sacrifice of those who have gone and served and died for the sake of their country.  And so we will remember.  Many of us will choose to remember by a unique blend of celebrating the start of summer and totally abandoning ourselves to doing whatever we want.  A unique freedom that we have because of the sacrifice of others.  I will choose to remember my grandfather.  He served in WW2 and was captured as a POW.  He was forced to participate in the Bataan Death March.  I am glad to say that he did not die during the war and so I can be grateful that he married my grandmother when he returned home to find that his former wife had remarried because he was a POW MIA and considered to be dead.  I am here today because of him.  His sacrifice of his family and so much more meant that I could live.

This reminds me of another who came and died in my place.  He sacrificed and was the sacrifice that made it possible for me to live.  And I am told to remember that.  On a regular basis. We celebrate communion each month and do it in remembrance.  So this weekend eat your hotdogs or hamburgers or both and go to the parade.  But remember the sacrifice of the One who gave His life for you. 

Graduation

 I went to my first graduation party of the season last weekend.  It is always a good time to celebrate with students their accomplishments and the things that they have worked so hard to accomplish.  In some ways a graduation is an end, and in some ways a graduation is a beginning.  And then I got to thinking about other things that share in that they are both an end and a beginning.  Becoming a parent is in some ways an end, and in many ways a beginning.  Retirement is an end and a beginning.  And so is death.  In fact, in the grace of God, very few things are completely an end.  Even death.  After death is the beginning of something far bigger, something eternal.  The question at this graduation will be not about your accomplishments, but about what you have decided about Jesus - is He your Savior and Lord, or have you rejected both His salvation and Lordship.  The former leads to a beginning of eternal bliss - the latter leads to a beginning of eternal loss.  Choose carefully!  It is a far more important choice than where you want to go to college!