Read Time: 4 min 19 sec | Reading Level: 8th Grade

U.S. NEWS

Long Weekend

Monday was Memorial Day, that day off school you sometimes confuse with Labor Day (that one’s in September).

It’s a day to honor the 1.3 million men and women who have given their lives while serving in the U.S. military.

Memorial Day Weekend (MDW for short) unofficially marks the beginning of summer. Almost 44 million Americans used the long weekend to travel. It was the busiest MDW on highways and in airports in almost 20 years. The most popular destinations were entertainment and theme parks in Orlando, New York, Las Vegas, and Southern California. 

While travel went through the roof, movie ticket sales… didn’t. U.S. box offices saw the worst Memorial Day weekend in nearly three decades (excluding 2020, of course). Furiosa and The Garfield Movie played on the big screen, but theaters were about 36% emptier than last year. 

For a lot of Americans, the weekend was stormy. Tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Texas. Texas caught a double whammy, pelted with baseball-sized hail and temperatures over 100 degrees. In total, 26 Americans died over the weekend from the severe weather.

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CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE
When believers mourn the deaths of those who know Jesus, we don’t grieve like the rest of the world. We grieve with hope, knowing that God will make everything new and we will live with him forever.

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep… and so we will always be with the Lord.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14, 17 (CSB) (read full passage)

What gospel lesson can be taught through this story?
Memorial Day is a day to remember those who made the most costly sacrifice on our behalf.

John 15:13 says, “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” The day of honoring fallen troops takes on greater significance when we remember the greatest sacrifice ever made. Jesus offered his life not only for friends and countrymen—he sacrificed his life for enemies and sinners.

What response to this story do I want to model for my children?
It’s a common trope in books and movies: when a hero gives his or her life for another, the survivor's life is forever shaped by that sacrifice—their purpose, their values, their relationships… everything.

American troops fought long and hard to give us freedom from oppressive government, and it’s a profound gift. Even greater is the freedom from sin and death gifted to us by faith in Jesus’s sacrifice. When we believe that he died for our freedom, it changes everything (John 8:36).

What will you do with that hard-won freedom? Paul warns believers: Don’t use your freedom to sin, satisfying your own cravings. Use your freedom to serve one another in love, motivated and empowered by God’s Spirit (Galatians 5:13).

• Talk with your kids about how Memorial Day takes on greater significance when we consider the example Jesus gave of laying down his life.

• Memorize 1 John 3:16 "This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

• Pray for those who are mourning lost loved ones. And pray that your family’s life would be noticeably shaped by the sacrifice of Jesus.

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