Nine years ago I sat down and undertook a sobering task. Taking pen and paper in hand, I wrote a letter to be read in the event that I might be killed in a place far away from home. See, I was a brand new ensign in the US Navy, and my ship was about to be deployed to support efforts in the Global War on Terror. While the dangers we were likely to face were certainly not on the same level as those who were serving in ground operations in Iraq or Afghanistan, we were all very aware of the possibility of a repeat of the terrorist attack on USS Cole a few years prior, where a number of sailors were killed and many more wounded. I wrote the letter knowing a truth that is on every military member's mind when it comes to deployment - you have to go, but you don't have to come back.
I think of this now on Memorial Day as we reflect as a nation on the sacrifice of those who did go in the service of our country, and did not come back. For so many, their country called, they answered, and the final price was their very life.
A couple years ago on Memorial Day this was cast in a different light as I was beckoned by a book I was reading to consider a different call, a different cause, a different mission, but one with the same sort of consequences. The book I was reading was The Insanity of Obedience, written by a missionary and an expert on the persecuted Christian Church named Nik Ripkin. He has conducted hundreds of interviews with believers across the world who have been persecuted and suffered much for the cause of Christ. Through his books (this one and his previous one The Insanity of God) he weaves in many of these accounts, and as I was reading on a past Memorial Day one account in particular stood out in my mind:
The house church elder explained that the Holy Spirit woke him up in the middle of the night and told him to gather together the fruits, vegetables, and meat that the house church had stored up to care for people in need. The Holy Spirit told the man to take this load of food, by horse and sled, to a pastor's family who had been left to die in a one-room hut in the frozen tundra.
The man reminded the Holy Spirit that it was thirty degrees below zero outside and that there was no way that he would survive the trip. The man reminded the Holy Spirit that the wolves would probably eat his horse and then eat him.
Then the words of the Holy Spirit rang in his ears: "You don't have to come back; you simply have to go."
This man is committed to the cause of Christ and now his Lord is asking everything of him. Many would hear this and argue that what the Holy Spirit was calling him to do was crazy - he might not even make it to the family he was sent to help! Then that family would be dead anyway and the man died unnecessarily too. But the call was simple - you don't have to come back; you simply have to go.
In reality though, this is the call on every disciple of Jesus.
Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24)
Where does following Jesus lead? Denial of self. Even to death.
This has always been the call on those who follow Jesus. From Stephen on through Paul and the other apostles, to believers today all over the world, the call remains the same: Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me. You don't have to come back; you simply have to go.
Now, while military service and service to the Lord Jesus Christ both beckon someone to serve and even potentially die in the line of their respective callings, there is a distinction. For those who trust and follow Christ, we have a leader who knew he had to go, but he also knew he was coming back. Not just coming back unharmed, but literally dying and coming back to life from death! And our Lord has had to go again, but we wait now, and we follow now, and we die to self now, and we even die now, with the hope that he will come back again, and this time those who have faithfully followed Him, wherever He has called us to go, will come back too to be with Him in His glory.
So Memorial Day is a time of reflective remembrance of others who have answered a call to service for their nation and gave everything in service to that call. But at the same time, that similar reflection serves too as a reminder to the believer in Jesus of the call that they too have simply to go, and of the hope that even though right now they don't have to come back, one day our Lord Himself will come back to bring back all those who answered His call to go.
