Memorial Day isn’t so much a celebration as it is a reckoning.
Not in a loud or angry way, but in a quiet, soul-searching manner that pauses us and asks: You do remember the cost, don’t you? It is a day that confronts us with the reality of the men and women who laid down their lives, the families who carry inexpressible grief, and the survivors who live with memories they did not choose.
For some, this weekend is about backyard barbecues, sales, and an extra day off. For others, it carries the quiet ache of memory: the final radio call that never came back… the photo on the mantle… the name etched in cold stone. It brings the silence that follows the 21-gun salute. It is the folded flag handed to a widow’s trembling hands.
For many who returned, it is the burden of survival, the unspoken question of why them and not me. That, too, is part of the cost. And it does not fade away when the grills fire up or the fireworks begin.
This is a day when sorrow and honor walk hand in hand. If we are thoughtful, we realize that this is not a contradiction; it is the cost of real love.
As Christians, we ought to be the first to recognize the sacred tension this day holds. Scripture never treats war lightly. Ecclesiastes says there is “a time for war and a time for peace” (3:8), and in that single line, we are reminded that sometimes war is tragically necessary. Romans 13 affirms that God has entrusted the sword to governments to restrain evil and protect the innocent. But that sword is never weightless. It wounds even the hand that wields it.
The Bible neither ignores nor romanticizes loss; it dignifies it. It calls us to remember not just the fallen, but the faithfulness of the God who walks with the grieving.
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (Psalm 116:15).
And He promises that the day is coming when “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore” (Revelation 21:4).
Until that day arrives, we mourn, but we do so with hope. We remember with reverence and honor both the fallen and their families, as well as the comrades who continue to feel their absence.
To those who have lost someone who served, you are not forgotten. To those who served and now carry the names of friends etched into your soul, you are not alone. Many in the church stand with you, not just in word, but in spirit-filled presence.
Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). On this Memorial Day, we remember those who did exactly that—not as heroes in a movie, but as real people whose blood was spilled so that others might live. That is not something we rush past; it is something we honor quietly and deeply.
Bittersweet is indeed the perfect word for today. It resonates with a kind of remembrance that makes us long for the return of the One who conquered death, not with weapons, but through His own wounds.
Soli Deo Gloria
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