Memorial Day: The Highest Expression of Love Is Self-Sacrifice

Jesus Christ said (Jn. 15:13), “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” The greatest expression of love a person can offer to someone or something is to sacrifice his life for the object of his love. Since that is true, then Memorial Day is the holiday when we celebrate those who loved America the most.

There are many people who have professed to love America, while their actions have damaged and even directly attacked her. But those who fought and died so that liberty might survive, from Trenton to New Orleans to Vicksburg to the beaches of Normandy to Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan up until the present day, the American soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines who gave the supreme sacrifice, testified more eloquently with their blood than any man ever could with words their love for their country and for liberty. Every tombstone of an American soldier is a silent and powerful witness to the cost that preserving liberty takes.

In celebrating Memorial Day, however, it is important that we not simply praise our honored dead. Will we decide that the sacrifice of all those generations of American soldiers is in vain, or will we step up and be the new generation that is willing to risk everything, even our lives, to save liberty?