Memorial Day is an unusual weekend. It is full of paradox.
It usually represents the end of school and the start of summer. It is usually celebrated with picnics and parades. It is also a time to remember those who served their country and lost their lives. It is a nod of the head to those who wear a uniform.
It is rarely a time to lament. We barely notice it as a day about the cost of war. Throughout centuries of history, the Bible gave voice to the laments of people whose children had died as the collateral damage of the decision of others.
Lamentations chapter 4 details the horrific consequences of war and violence. It is graphic and emotionally disturbing. It reminds us there are men, women and children who lost their lives for freedom, political agenda, nationalism and profit.
We rarely lament that over the course of the last 10,000 years of human history the human race still resorts to violence to control differences, increase domination and manipulate the distribution of resources.
There is also the national psyche at stake. Wars waged and especially wars won have always been the most effective way to unite a populace. In times of war, the tribe, the nation or the empire rally in unity around the common goal of conquering the enemy.
Rarely is the other side humanized as part of the human family, brothers and sisters made in the image of God.
Most commonly those who served in the most hellish of circumstances are thought of as heroes. Amen. However, rarely do we think of the heartbroken who carry the trauma of their service for a lifetime. Rarely is the cycle of violence broken thus setting up generations to be the next ones to carry the burden.
This Memorial Day we lament those who lost their lives, those who lost their sons and daughters and those who lost a part of their humanity in the process. We lament like the poet of Lamentations with the hope that someday there will be a better day. It is the hope that someday we as the human family will actually give peace a chance.
As Jesus put it, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling! Look your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you that you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord’. (Matthew 23:37-38).
May Memorial Day be a lament over the lives lost and those still living that cannot hear the invitation of the Prince of Peace. The church is called to reflect, remember and pray that the last graves of the fallen have been filled.
Larry A. Pozza