More than 53,000 Americans died on World War I battlefields.  Nearly 300,000 in World War II.  More than 33,000 in Korea.  More than 47,000 in Vietnam.

Always, and especially currently in the Middle East, the chance exists for deaths of Americans defending our country.

The numbers are seldom accurate for battlefield deaths.  That itself speaks to the horror and inhuman quality of what happens when countries collide, when warrior after warrior falls and becomes a number, maybe one uncounted.

No matter the final total, each was one.  And that One counted to friends and family.  It counted more than just about anything else did.  Someone was handed a folded flag.  Teary eyes heard Taps.  Real brothers and fathers and sons and daughters died.

An empty chair.

“Greater love has no one than this,

that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

In The Message, Eugene Peterson translates that verse in this way:

“It is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.”

In the backwash of Memorial Day, it is helpful and healthful to remember that someone died for us.  Some of those men and women, we will never know.  Heroic strangers —  wartime death, the ultimate sacrifice to freedom — should inspire us all, through love, to help and heal each other with goodness and understanding.

Today and every day is a good day to remember that through one good man’s death, through His blood, an otherwise fatal and eternal debt was paid, one that will lead to the end of war and death.  Every day is a good day to remember we were all bought with a price. Until the human heart can grasp enough to at least hint at the full meaning of and reality of Christ’s death, it can’t grasp the beautiful simplicity of the gospel, which is not about what we can do, but instead is about what has already been done for each of us.

Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu

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