Today is Memorial Day, a holiday established at the end of the American Civil War with the purpose of honoring and remembering those who lost their lives during the war. Expanded later to include all who have lost their lives while serving their country, it is one of the most neglected of our national holidays. Most of our citizenry have never visited the national cemeteries that commemorate the lives lost in battle.

I remember when I went to Normandy and saw the thousands of white tombstones that were so perfectly aligned, so reverently treated, that we all walked through those grassy lawns and monuments in silence. An hour earlier, I had stood on Omaha beach, looking out at the orange buoys that marked the edge of the beach on D-Day in 1944, shocked at how far the soldiers had been forced to run through horrendous gunfire to reach the relative safety of the rising coastline. “No wonder so many died,” I thought, lost in a numb grief.

I have walked through the same kinds of memorials in Arlington, Virginia, Grand Prairie, and San Diego. The effect is always the same: grief, awe, and reverent silence. We don’t like to think about the price that has been paid for us. We don’t like to think of the soldiers’ cost, and frankly, we avoid thinking about the price Jesus paid for us. It creates an enormous sense of debt, a debt we can never repay. But whether we want to think about it or not, we must.

The primary warning to ancient Israel was not to forget the Lord, not to forget the ways He had delivered, protected, and led. And that warning rings in my ears today, knowing that forgetting is dangerous and defeating. So today, pause and give thanks, join a concert of tribute, and remember the privilege for which so many have given their lives.