Rev. Ray and Pat Amos

“Jesus, Remember me” Luke 23:42

Today we remember the soldiers who paid the highest price for the freedom that we enjoy. Many of us know some of them by name. They may have been family, friend, neighbor, classmate, or even a fellow soldier; but not one of them was just a war statistic. They did not ask for war, but were called and even compelled to go. The number of fallen heroes cannot be known. We tend to think of them as single soldiers, airmen and sailors, but they are also the families who suffer the grief of a sadness and sorrow that the rest of us cannot know. They too bear the price tag of our freedom.

“Jesus, remember them and please bring them home!” has been the prayer of Mothers and Fathers who cried as their young loved one went marching off to war. Many of them did not come back, and were never forgotten by those who loved then. “Jesus, remember them,” was the sad cry of young hearts in interrupted love, and little children who watched their hero go away like a fading light in a war’s long night.

“Jesus, remember me,” was a prayer that was prayed in a thousand ways on a fearful battleground, a suffering ship, or in a crippled bird of tin that was falling to the ground. Pocket Bibles, pictures of loved ones, letters from home, and memories of happier summer days were held tightly in the hands and hearts of dying soldiers who closed their eyes as they remembered the ones they hoped would never forget them.

Take a walk among the graves of our fallen soldiers today. Dare we ask, “What do these stones mean?” Each one is a chapter in a family’s story, a poppy in “Flanders Fields,” and a tear drop in a vessel of innumerable tears that rest on the altar of God never to be forgotten.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13
Grace and Peace, Rev Ray