Veterans Day 2011, November 11
By Chaplain, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh H. Morgan, USAF, Retired
Director/Endorser, Chaplains Ministries, IPHC
In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower called for the formation of a Veterans Day National Committee to oversee national planning and coordination of Veterans Day observances. Their mission was to honor America’s Veterans, as well as to instruct younger generations to understand the true meaning of Veterans Day.
The call to remember our nation’s veterans, past and present, whose sacrifices have secured liberty and justice for all, is as ancient at the Holy Scriptures we all treasure.
In the third and fourth chapters of the book of Joshua, we have a compelling story of God’s miraculous intervention on the behalf of His people and a requirement to memorialize that event.
God commanded the children of Israel to cross the flooded, turbulent Jordan River into the Promised Land.
The priests were commanded to go before the people with the Ark of the Covenant and to stand in the middle of the rushing water. There was an implicit promise in this command and an assurance from past experience that God would make a way through the swollen river. It was to be done, the Scripture tells us, so that “You will know that the Living God is among you.”
Joshua commanded that a member from each of the twelve tribes take a stone from the middle of the Jordan. They were directed to carry the large rock to the campsite at Gilgal where a memorial was to be constructed.
Joshua said to them. “When your children ask their fathers, in time to come, what mean these stones? You can tell them that the waters of Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord . . . so that those stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”
We humans need to be called to remember because we have a great tendency to forget:
• Those who have paved the way for us.
• Those who had the courage to step into the rushing water.
• Those who held high the sacred Ark of the Covenant of God’s working among us.
• Those who stopped to pick up a rock
• All those who made it possible to cross over.
God knows our forgetfulness:
• He chose a rock, Peter, to lead the disciples.
• He gave us a sacrament to declare us clean. A sacrament we proclaim in public worship to remember our dying and being raised, and our Lord’s coming again.
• He gave us a sacramental meal and told us to eat it as a memorial of Him.
May I encourage pastors and laymen alike to form a committee to plan an appropriate celebration of Veterans Day in your church, either on Sunday November 6, or Sunday, November 13. Utilize the gifts and talents of your people to be creative in commemorating this national day of remembrance.
As you plan this event may I remind you to include all those who have taken the oath of military service.
Let us pray that we as a nation will ever keep our promises to those who have willingly given everything to defend and protect the Constitution of our great nation.
It is in moments like these we especially remember all who grieve the loss of loved ones, all veterans who bear the scars of battle in their bodies, minds, and spirits. It is our prayer that God will give them a measure of His peace that passes all understanding.
May they know that their sacrifices were not in vain and that a grateful nation takes time to stop the day from the hectic pace of life to honor them for who they are and for the great gift of freedom that have given to all of us.
Posted on
Mon, November 7, 2011
by Hugh Morgan