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La Harpe– Many gathered with lawn chairs seated under the shade trees of the La Harpe City Park to pay respect to the service men and women who gave their all to protect our freedom and to serve America.
American Legion Auxilliary #301 lead by Joan Siegworth President, hosted the Memorial Day services on a pleasant sunny Monday, May 30, the day set aside to remember our fallen veterans who gave their all for America. This year, Chris Little, Secretary, stepped in as Master of Ceremonies for the event. The presentation, retiring of colors, 21 gun salute and taps were done by American Legion Post #301 members.
Dominic Jones played an excellent electric guitar performance of "the Star-Spangled Banner as the audience stood with hand over heart. It was followed by the opening prayer offered by Bruce Goettsche, Minister of the Union Church. Interim minister Kendall Hetrick, Agape Church, read a Memorial Day poem that he had written. It was followed by Melissa Burt singing God Bless America with the audience joining in on the second verse.
Pastor A. Lee Unger - Minister of the Durham and Terre Haute Methodist Churches gave the following message.
May 30, 2022 | John 15:13
Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Today, our nation mourns the loss of all Americans who died defending our country throughout the world since 1775. This remembrance is all-inclusive spanning 247 years and some 62 ( some sources say 80) military actions that claimed 1.2 million lives.
These men and women have remained mostly anonymous except to the families who loved them. Who were they? They were relatives, friends and neighbors melded together to perform a service for an entire society.
They came from all walks of life and from all regions of our country. Nevertheless, they all had one thing in common, the love of and loyalty to country.
They were the nation’s defenders. Memorial Day, America commemorates those who made the greatest sacrifice possible, giving one’s own life selflessly. Far too often, the nation as a whole takes for granted the freedoms we enjoy.
Freedoms paid for by the lives of others few of us actually knew. Today, we collectively remember those who gave their all.
And yet even with a national Holiday, we are still a forgetful people. The phrase out of sight out of mind applies to us most of the time.
Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
In this verse our Lord spoke of the greatest expression of love: sacrificial love.
The Sacrificial Love of the Military Personnel
When a person has enlisted in the Armed Forces they repeat the following oath:
I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United
States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
These men and women volunteer to leave home and family to protect the freedoms we treasure.
Our freedom of religion, speech, and the right to keep and bear arms (and many more) are defended and protected by our military.
Former Senator Fred Thompson once said, “This wouldn’t be the land of the free if it were not the home of the brave.”
It is good and proper for us to thank God for the men and women who have sacrificially loved each of us through military service.Sacrificial Love is the Average in America
Fred Rogers said concerning tragedies, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
Do not focus on the devastation, but focus on those who are sacrificing themselves in order to help.
Look again at our verse this morning, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
We have seen two examples of sacrificial love and now we reflect on the greatest act of sacrificial love provided by God on our behalf. Jesus laid down His life for His friends and sacrificed Himself for us.
The greatest gift ever made was by God himself in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. We read of it in what is called the golden text of the Bible, John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Quite obviously, God is a giving God, a loving God, a God of mercy and grace. How marvelous indeed are His expressions to each of us!
We rightly honor those who sacrifice themselves for their friends and their country.
Normally, in human terms, when we receive a little gift from some friend or loved one at
Christmas or on a birthday, we like to show our appreciation. We need to show pur appreciation for all that God has given us by allowing us to be a part of the greatest nation in the histroy of the world!” We can show our gratitude by:
1. Our love: 2. Ourselves:
3. Our loyalty: 4. Our talents:
Paul Harvey - It was gratitude that prompted an old man to visit an old broken pier on the eastern seacoast of Florida. Every Friday night, until his death in 1973, he would return, walking slowly and slightly stooped with a large bucket of shrimp. The sea gulls would flock to this old man, and he would feed them from his bucket. Many years before, in October 1942, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was on a mission in a B-17 to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea.
Somewhere over the South Pacific the Flying Fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio. Fuel ran dangerously low, so the men ditched their plane in the ocean. For nearly a month Captain Eddie and his companions would fight the water, weather, and the scorching sun. They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts.
But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable: starvation. Eight days out, their rations were long gone or destroyed by the salt water. It would take a miracle to sustain them. And a miracle occurred. “Something landed on my head. I knew that it was a sea gull. I don’t know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew too. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that gull.
The gull meant food . . . if I could catch it.” And the rest, as they say, is history. Captain Eddie caught the gull. Its flesh was eaten. Its intestines were used for bait to catch fish. The survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because a lone sea gull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, offered itself as a sacrifice.
He never forgot. Because every Friday evening, about sunset, on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast, you could see an old man walking . . . white-haired, bushy-eye browed, slightly bent. His bucket was filled with shrimp to feed the gulls, to remember that one, which, on a day long past, gave itself without a struggle.
Just as Eddie Rickenbacker never forgot the gull that gave its life, we should never forget the soldiers of our country who gave up their lives. Eddie got a second chance at life, and because many brave men and women have died in the armed services fighting for our country’s freedom, we too have a chance at life – a life of freedom. Both freedom and life never come without a price. The blood of many fine soldiers paid for the freedom that we have today, just as the blood of the tiny lamb of the Passover paid for the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelites. A price has to be paid for freedom and life, and that price is the death of another. Someone, or something, has to die in order that we might live.
Our country’s soldiers died that we might have a life of freedom, and Jesus died that we might have life eternal.
Dearest Father in heaven, today we pause to remember the brave soldiers, sailors and airmen who gave their lives for our freedom. Father we are thankful for them all, all these courageous men and women. They fought on land, at sea and in the air sacrificing their lives that we may live in freedom and worship You in peace.
We honor them now, their bravery we cannot ignore. Heroes of war, they were so much more, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends.
Our beautiful red, white and blue flies at half-mast for those of the past to whom our gratitude we send. We place flowers on the graves of those who were brave.
We salute them. Seeing poppies galore while our hearts soar, remembering proudly those who gave the last full measure of devotion.
They fought not for glory, nor for wealth, nor honor, but only and alone for freedom which no good man or woman surrenders but with his or her life. Father, let us not have on our conscience that they died in vain.
Guide us to live with hatred toward none and love for all through freedom in Christ. Amen.
Local Boy Scouts of America troop members lead the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance during La Harpe's American Legion Auxilliary Post 301's annual Memorial Day Service at the La Harpe City Park Veterans Memorial.
The school band members were not able to perform this year.