Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Today is Memorial Day here in the US and it serves a great day to remember those who have served both their generation and the generations to come through their heroic defense of freedom.
I think it is fitting and good to honor those who have sacrificed for others. As a former veteran I am especially inclined to be passionately patriotic. However, as a Christian I see this day as a gigantic arrow pointing to a more Memorial Day.
I think of the greatest man who ever lived and who gave the ultimate sacrifice (in the truest sense of the word) to purchase freedom for a great multitude. I of course am talking about the greatest hero to ever live and die, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Consider the mission he was on. He was born to die; there was never another option. And further the very thing that he was coming to die for was what killed him.
So today as you see the flowers, watch the news, or enjoy the day off, remember that these folks were heroes indeed, but they were not Saviors. They did not die redemptively. Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone is the true preeminent hero; for he is the one, the only one, who could and would give his life as a sacrifice for sinners.
The most ‘memorial day’ is the bloody, dark, sin-stained day of Golgotha where the Prince of Heaven became the price for heathens. Take time this week to meditate upon this reality friends. Jesus Christ, under no obligation to you, came to willfully offer up his life as a sacrifice for rebels. He satisfied divine wrath and secured nation of redeemed sinners.
Furthermore, you need not go to his grave to pay tribute or leave a flower, instead this hero stands alive in the posture of preeminence even now reigning at the right hand of God enjoying the incense of his perfection. He does not ask for sorrow, for pity, or for tears of grief, instead Jesus Christ demands worship. He demands that rebels such as us find him to be gloriously beautiful and worthy of our highest joy and treasure.
Enjoy the reality of the risen and victorious King who gave his life as a sacrifice for sinners like you and me. Be encouraged that his glory and merit will never be eclipsed but forever shine as the focal point of all eternity through the Christ Centered worship of all of the redeemed in concert with the heavenly hosts.
