Holy God:
On this Memorial Day weekend, we confess that we have often turned the celebration of the day into a time of rest and recreation. While this is well and good, help is to avoid forgetting the meaning is the day.
As our nation begins to emerge from a time of protracted war, we take time to remember those who have paid the ultimate price for the sake of this nation, those who have given their lives on our behalf.
Our community has been touched by the loss of those who have died in battle. We ask that your healing balm would restore the broken hearts of their families. We ask also that you would touch with your mercy those who have been wounded in body and soul by the horror of war. Directly or indirectly, we are all victims of the greatest of human evils, so we ask for your mercy that we might all be made whole.
We remember also that you have made your people into an army fighting evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. Many have given their lives and are currently dying on behalf of their testimony for the Prince of Peace.
So on this Memorial Day, help us to recommit to your fight, a battle in which our weapons are those our Lord employed, and the only weapons he offers us, the weapons of self-sacrificial love service and unshakeable allegiance to our humble king.
We recommit ourselves to your vision of a peaceable kingdom in which nation will not rise against nation and neither will they learn war anymore. We ask your grace for the conviction to fight for love, to battle against hatred and misunderstanding, to offer our lives for reconciliation and the conquest of the Gospel alone.
Above all, on this Memorial Day, we remember the one who died for us all, who fought for our redemption, who died that we might have abundant life, that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our God and king.
Help us to remember. Help us to be true to the example he set. Help us to live and die for the purpose for which he gave his life.
Amen
