Freedom isn't free

 


On Memorial Day we recognize the men and women who gave their lives in service to their country, as well as every military person (and their family) who serve each day knowing the risk.  I have known many people who have given themselves to protect our freedoms and way of life, and I am grateful for their service. 

There is a saying I have often heard said in association with the day, “All gave some, some gave all.”

Jesus gave all.

Throughout his three-year ministry Jesus predicted his own death many times.  He knew that the things He was doing and saying were an affront to many of the religious leaders of the day, and that eventually, He would have to die in order to fulfill the words of Isaiah, written 700 years before Jesus’ birth.

“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?  He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

 

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.  Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.  Surely, he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

 

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested?  For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.  He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

 

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

 

Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” – Isaiah 53.

 

This Memorial Day I am grateful for those who serve our great country, protecting our freedoms, and way of life.  And I am grateful for Jesus, whose death and resurrection, freed me from the deserved punishment for my sins.

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