Of Memorial Day and Sacrifices
By Elizabeth Prata
I like visiting cemeteries. I always have. I grew up next to a large one. It was beautiful and even had a beautiful name. Stone columns adorned either side of the entry and a babbling brook ran in front and all along the side. Gentle hills were fun to swoop my bike down and were not hard to pedal up. Huge pine trees looking like Christmas trees allowed a solitude-seeking girl to part the boughs and lay inside the greenery on a bed of pine needles, reading Nancy Drew, at once protected and apart from the world. I liked that cemetery for its quietude, but I was not yet old enough to really ponder the eternality of those residing in it, under the ground.
I enjoyed the cemeteries we looked at in the Pews and Pulpits Ramble I took a few years ago. It was a historical tour of old Georgia churches with their adjacent cemeteries. Lots to look at, including unusual graves and monuments.
The photo of a monument I saw online the other day was SO unusual, I looked at this photo for a long time. It brought tears to my eyes, for a variety of reasons. Matthew Stanford Robison was born with issues and a lack of oxygen rendered him blind and paralyzed. Doctors did not expect Matthew to live. But he did, for 10 and a half years.
He passed away in his sleep in 1999. His father, Ernest, designed and built a memorial he’d wanted to bring joy and comfort to others. Here it is-the moment his broken body releases the little boy soul who is looking up and reaching for Jesus.
I looked at that picture for a long time, thinking of all the disabled people, the people in chronic pain. Someone I know named Alex who is wheelchair bound, another named DebieLynne, my own elder, rendered paralyzed due to a football neck injury in high school. Children battling cancer and losing. Stillborn babies. So much pain for so many people, but the folks I mentioned are Christian and emit much joy of Christ through their struggles and obstacles. But it is a fact that the curse of sin in the world brings with it much sorrow, including illnesses and broken bodies.
John 15:13 says, Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends.
The above photo is of the United States’ Arlington National Cemetery
Honoring service and sacrifice to a grateful nation, Arlington National Cemetery represents the American people for past, present and future generations by laying to rest those who have served our nation with dignity and honor, says the About at the Arlington Cemetery website.
Those many graves you see, and there are so many more than can be captured in one photograph, ho laid down their lives for a cause, love of country. This is a wonderful cause and their sacrifice cannot be forgotten and must be honored.
Yet Jesus, God Himself, poured His infinite holy self into mere flesh to live among sinners, preached his message of redemption and repentance, and died as THE sacrifice for all time.
We honor fallen soldiers who sacrificed all on this day. Let us honor Jesus who Is the All in All on all days.
I was moved thinking about the day I either pass away or am called up to Jesus alive and I see Him! What a wonderful moment. Sin will pass away. I will sin no more. No one who was found to be in Christ will be tainted by it or harmed by it or endure any pain because of it.
And no more cemeteries, for death was not found. (Revelation 20:14). We will spend our days gazing upon the Author of Life, united in one country, citizens of Heaven. War will be no more. What a day that will be.
