Morning Devotional
May 25, 2003
“Memorial Day”  
by Don Emmitte

I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. And here is how to measure it, the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends. You are my friends if you obey me. (John 15:12-15 NLV). 

Memorial Day, perhaps more than any other holiday, was born of necessity. There is a basic desire within all of us to understand life and our place in it and the world around us. What we have been given, what we will do with it and what we will pass to the next generation is all part of an unfolding history. It ties us together with our future. Abraham Lincoln must have been thinking about these things in the late fall of 1863. His darkest fear was that he might well be the last president of the United States, a nation embroiled in the self-destruction of what he described as "a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." He began his remarks with those words as he stood on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19th of that year. 

Of course we know that speech as Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and it turned into what might be called the first observance of Memorial Day. Lincoln's purpose that day was to dedicate a portion of the battlefield as a cemetery for the thousands of men, both living and dead, who consecrated that soil in the sacrifice of battle. Said Abraham Lincoln: "That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause which they gave the last full measure of devotion...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom..." It would not end with that dedication. The next year, a pleasant Sunday in October of 1864 found a teenage girl, Emma Hunter, gathering flowers in a Boalsburg, Pennsylvania cemetery to place on the grave of her father. He was a surgeon who had died in service to the Union Army in the Civil War. Nearby, Mrs. Elizabeth Meyer was strewing flowers upon the grave of her son Amos, a private who had fallen on the last day of the battle of Gettysburg. Emma respectfully took a few of her flowers and put them on the grave of Amos. Mrs. Meyer, in turn, laid some of her freshly cut blooms on the grave of Dr. Hunter. Both women felt a lightening of their grief by this act of honoring each other's loss, and agreed to meet again the next year. This time they agreed they would also visit the graves of those who had no one left to honor them. Both Emma Hunter and Elizabeth Meyer returned to the cemetery in Boalsburg on the day they had agreed, Independence Day, July 4, 1865. This time, though, they found themselves joined by nearly all the residents of the town. Dr. George Hall, a clergyman, preached a memorial sermon, and the community joined in decorating every grave in the cemetery with flowers and flags. The custom became an annual event at Boalsburg, and it wasn't long before neighboring communities established their own "Decoration Day" each spring. And, in 1868 it became official. May 30th each year would become “Memorial Day.” 

We have so much to “remember” this Memorial Day. So many have given so much for our freedoms. Certainly not the least of those sacrifices was that which was given by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Spend some time this holiday being thankful for these gifts of grace and love.