Memorial Day Weekend
May 25, 2025
Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father
will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
Whoever does not love me does not keep my
words, and the word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent
me.
"I have said these things to you
while I am still with you.
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom
the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of
all that I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to
you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be
troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
You heard me say to you, 'I am going away,
and I am coming to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to
the Father, because the Father is greater than I.
And now I have told you this before it
occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.
****************************
Remembrance
is tied to people’s memory, and memory can be imprecise. Over time it becomes malleable, so that it
shifts (if you’re not careful) to fit present realities, and inevitably almost
everything will be forgotten eventually unless it is carefully preserved. Even then, someone has to know where to look
to retrieve information.
Some memories are more
weighty than others for a variety of reasons.
For instance, we remember those who have fallen in war because the
survivors have a sense of obligation toward those whose lives were given for
(we would hope) a common good beyond personal well-being. We do well, though, to mix a good measure of
regret with that. When we remember the
fallen, we are reminded that war is never something to be sought and that its
victims on both sides will include both those responsible for the conflict and
others who will be labelled “collateral damage”.
It's the people who see
battle themselves who carry the greatest awareness of its tragedy. We think about David as the shepherd boy who
fought and killed Goliath, or as the warrior king in Jerusalem who also wrote
or gathered the Psalms together. But he
spent years as a fugitive from the court of King Saul, chased out by Saul’s
jealousy, forced to become leader of mercenaries in a strange period of
shifting loyalties involving the Philistines and the Israelites and a whole
series of Canaanite tribes and city states.
Then came the battle of Mount Gilboa where the Philistines killed
David’s friend and brother-in-law Jonathan, who was Saul’s son, and Saul threw
himself on his own sword to avoid capture.
That cleared the way for
David to become king, but he didn’t gloat or proclaim a victory. What he did was compose a lament, and order
that it be preserved in memory of the dead:
“Your glory, O Israel, lies slain upon
your high places!
How the mighty have
fallen!
Tell it not in Gath,
proclaim it not in the
streets of Ashkelon;
or the daughters of the Philistines
will rejoice,
the daughters of the
uncircumcised will exult.
You mountains of Gilboa,
let there be no dew or
rain upon you,
nor bounteous
fields!
For there the shield of the mighty
was defiled,
the shield of Saul,
anointed with oil no more.
From the blood of the slain,
from the fat of the
mighty,
the bow of Jonathan did not turn back,
nor the sword of Saul
return empty.
Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely!
In life and in death they
were not divided;
they were swifter than eagles,
they were stronger than
lions.
O daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,
who clothed you with
crimson, in luxury,
who put ornaments of gold
on your apparel.
How the mighty have fallen
in the midst of the
battle!
Jonathan lies slain upon your high places.
I am distressed for you,
my brother Jonathan;
greatly beloved were you to me;
your love to me was
wonderful,
passing the love of
women.
How the mighty have fallen,
and the weapons of war
perished!” [II Samuel 1:19-27]
Jesus,
too, went to war for his people, for us, but in a different way. His battle was never against human beings,
even the ones who wanted to see him dead.
His battle was against everything that makes human life less than what
God wants for his children. Jesus reached
out to those who were themselves caught up in the work of sin and evil, who
could be seen as prisoners of war locked up behind fences of hatred and greed
and self-seeking and arrogance and cruelty. His battle for human freedom could
not be fought with violence, since that is his enemies’ weapon, but only with
endurance and the infinite power of God’s love that he embodied. So in that struggle, he took on all the
suffering that arises from the wrongs done not only by his opponents but by his
friends also. And he died.
For them. For us.
For you. For me.
He
died, but for him there would be no lasting grave, no need for lament, because
he rose again. Instead of a funeral ode,
he would have his own, unique memorial, a record of his life, death, and
resurrection, a new testament to God’s love for him and for the entire world.
Jesus
had told his friends,
“The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all
that I have said to you.
This is what we mean when we speak of the Holy Spirit
inspiring the scriptures. Building upon
the record of what God had done for the people of Israel, people before David
and after him, Jesus’ followers began to set down what they saw in Jesus’ life
and to preserve his teachings in what would be a message to people of all
nations and all times.
The
second part of the monument to Jesus’ victory is still being built in the lives
that his death has saved. A big piece of
the scriptures is made up of letters that show the early Church coming to see Jesus’
Spirit at work among them, renewing lives and blessing them with the freedom
from sin and death that Jesus had won for them on the cross.
That
part of his monument continues to be built every day as those who love him find
ways to build his kingdom of love throughout this world, one where the powerful
have yet to learn that right makes might, and not the other way around. But Jesus’ people have been given assurance of
what lies beyond the battles that all too often find them. In his own words,
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give
to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be
troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” [John 14:27]
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