By Pastor Mitzi
When the first pandemic stay-at-home orders stretched on and on and I thought I’d lose my grip if I stayed inside one more day, I ventured out to walk through the cemetery near my house. Perhaps it was an odd thing to do at a time when death already lurked around every corner. To me, it was a comfort. Headstone after headstone proclaimed the intricate interdependence of humanity as well as belief in a God who can be trusted. As Memorial Day approaches, may we remember those who died in military service to our nation and give thanks for their service.
Read more about Raleigh’s historic cemeteries here.
The boughs of my family tree are thick with veterans, but I must travel back to WWII and my great uncle to name a relative who died in war. For this reason, Memorial Day can sometimes feel disconnected from daily life. Walking amongst tombstones brings its purposes home. Their etched gray surfaces and epitaphs remind me that the freedom and lifestyle we enjoy are the products of sacrifice. The war in Ukraine and the plight of the Ukrainian people reveal again that the quest for shalom, justice, and security requires humanity to band together in ways that come at great cost.
When the Apostle Paul speaks of sacrifice wrapped in grace, he says we can “boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given us.”
Paul is not glorifying suffering or asking us to downplay the hardships experienced by our beloved dead; he reminds us that in Christ we have what we need to endure hardship and to grow from it on an eternal scale. We have what we need to develop our character and to look beyond ourselves and our own self-interests to what is good for God and God’s world.
The tombstones of our fallen war dead call us to sing again the promises of this verse from “How Blest Are They Who Trust in Christ” (UMH 654).
In Christ, who tasted death for us, we rise above our natural grief,
and witness to a stricken world the strength and splendor of belief.
On this Memorial Day, we thank our honored dead best by looking beyond our own interests and recommitting ourselves to working toward what they worked for: a peaceable kingdom (Isaiah 11:1-9) for our families, Soapstone UMC family, Triangle community, North Carolina, nation and world.