“No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul remarks on how unusual it is for someone to die for someone else. Life is precious. We know that inherently. Because of that, we tend to guard our own life pretty jealously. The idea that we might give up our life for anyone or anything is an awfully tall order. Echoing this same idea, Jesus said that such an act represents the greatest gift of love a person could possibly give. Well, today is the day our nation pauses each year to reflect on love lived out. Let’s reflect on that for just a few moments together.

This week is going to have just a bit different of a schedule than usual. We’re away visiting family, so my time to write is a bit shorter than it normally is. I’ll still aim to post all week, but they’ll be a good bit shorter than they typically are. We’ll get back on track next week with the usual sermon, Exodus, and bonus Friday schedule.

It is an over used cliche to note that freedom isn’t free. Cliche or not, though, that doesn’t make the idea any less true. Freedom is not the natural state of anyone. This applies to both individuals as well as nations. On our own and without any actions to intentionally change this, we will be controlled by someone or something else. People who are free have intentionally chosen that state of affairs for themselves.

Because freedom is not natural, though, simply choosing that situation is not enough. Once it has been chosen it must be sustained actively. It must be chosen over and over and over again every single day without ever stopping. On the day it is not chosen, it will be lost. That loss may not be immediately obvious, but it will be felt eventually.

When thinking in terms of an entire nation, this need for choosing freedom takes two different forms. The first form is internal: virtue. Freedom is only possible where virtue flourishes. This is because where there is no virtue, something else will have to come in and stop the spread of the moral evil to which we are naturally drawn. This something else is most often law. When we don’t actively choose virtue, we will need laws to regulate and restrict our unvirtuous choices so they don’t hurt the people around us. And where law flourishes, freedom withers.

Virtue, however, is no more a normal state of affairs than freedom. It needs something else to sustain it. This something else is faith. Absent faith in a higher power whose good and noble character pushes those who believe in it to consciously choose virtue for themselves as a function of their belief, virtue never lasts long. As far as faith goes, the Christian faith has historically been the most successful faith in terms of encouraging the kind of commitment to virtue that allows freedom to flourish, but that’s a conversation for another time. For now it is enough to know that freedom requires virtue which requires faith in what Os Guinness calls the golden triangle of freedom.

The other thing freedom requires if it is to be chosen by a nation is a group of people who are willing to commit themselves to protecting and defending it from external threats. Not only is freedom not the natural state of people, but where freedom exists, the rest of the world that is living in more of a natural state will actively try to eliminate freedom where it has taken root. A nation, then, that has consciously chosen freedom for itself must also actively be willing to defend their freedom against those who would try to take it from them.

Practically speaking, this most often takes the form of a military. Free nations need citizens who are willing to serve in a military dedicated to defend the rest of the population from external threats to their freedom. And while this service most often takes a relatively peaceful form, it doesn’t always. It comes with the inherent risk of violence. It comes with the inherent risk of dying in defense of freedom. For those who nonetheless choose to be a part of this external defense of freedom, though, this is no meaningless waste of life, but an active sacrifice for the benefit of the rest of the nation. These individuals willingly lay down their lives for their fellow citizens in an act that Jesus Himself called the greatest gift of love a person can give.

Today is the day we set aside to reflect gratefully on those who have willingly sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom for the rest of us. They loved their country—that is, you and me—so much that they did not consider their own life too great a thing to give so that it could continue to enjoy the freedom it has uniquely possessed for many generations. To put that another way, they loved freedom so much that they were willing to die so that someone else could experience it.

Those who gave this last measure of devotion are heroes of the highest order, and our gratitude for them should be immense. Whether they understood it or not, they were following in the footsteps of Jesus more faithfully than many of us ever dare to even try. It is right and proper for us to honor them. We honoring them by remembering what they have done. We honor them by following in their footsteps and committing ourselves to doing what we can to protect and defend our freedom. We honor them by choosing to walk a path of virtue so that we can continue living with the freedom they died to preserve. Today, let’s commit to doing that.