Memorial Day
Exodus 12:14 This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. (ESV)
No matter what country you happen to live in, there are men and women who’ve gone before you, who sacrificed their lives in the hope of protecting your freedom. And that … that’s a sobering thought.
Today is Memorial Day in the United States – a day when the nation remembers, honours and mourns those members of the military who laid down their lives in service. Traditionally, a memorial is a statue or structure to remind us of something important.
But it doesn’t have to be something physical. In fact, by far the greater memorial is the one that lives in people’s hearts as they remember the price that was paid for them.
When God freed Israel from slavery in Egypt, each household had to kill a lamb and paint its blood on their doorposts, so that the angel of death – the last plague sent upon Pharaoh’s Egypt to convince him to let God’s people go – would literally pass over their homes and lives. And God commanded,
Exodus 12:14 This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. (ESV)
But that was only a foretaste of the true salvation to come. Many years later Jesus, the Lamb of God, shed His blood to buy us our freedom: freedom from the sin destroying our lives: freedom from God’s wrath when one day we stand before Him in judgement, as we all will.
It’s awesome for nations to set aside a day to remember those who sacrificed their lives to purchase the freedom of others. But the greatest sacrifice of all was the death of Jesus on that Cross. Memorial Day.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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