Memorial Day fall this year in a time when we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock and the 75th Anniversary of “D-Day,” or the World War II Normandy Invasion.
What we celebrate shows a lot about our soul.
Woodstock represented freedom. Freedom to take off my clothes in public, freedom to have sex with whomever I wanted, fre
edom to use drugs, freedom to put off adulthood and responsibility, freedom from authority, freedom from the shackles of parents and their generation and their “hypocritical” values such as faith and freedom to just be “me.”
Put another way, Woodstock stood for freedom from sacrifice.
D-Day was about sacrifice so that others could be free.
Like Woodstock, people were naked during WWII…in Hitler’s death camps. Oh, what they would have done to clothe their dignity.
Entire nations and cultures were under siege. Those in governments, universities, media and other formerly free institutions were literally or metaphorically imprisoned.
The only way to wrestle civilization out of the beast’s mouth was to step out of a Higgins Boat and directly into German machine-gun fire.
We are still free because of D-Day and a myriad of other conflicts. But the battle we are still fighting is the one over what constitutes “freedom.”
Which anniversary will you celebrate this year?
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: The startling contrast between Woodstock and D-Day is a portal to heaven in that it reveals whether we gravitate toward freedom from God or freedom because of God.
Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing… [Nicodemus said] ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.’ Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’ [Jesus] sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Acts 5:36 NIV, John 3:2,3 NIV, John 8:36 NIV [Editor’s brackets]