FUNERAL

Although some of you reading this from around the world may not identify closely with this particular blog, if you're living anywhere nearby, you WILL -- and it IS called "A DAY IN THE LIFE," so ...

Today was the funeral for Corporal Richard "Ricky" Nelson - 23 - who was killed on April 14 by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

Wednesday night the wake was held at a local funeral home. I arrived before the thing was even supposed to begin and already the line was all the way outside, threatening to reach the parking lot and beyond, which it did eventually. The outpouring of attention and love to the family was a sight to see.

Today the funeral saw 1,200+ people in attendance. Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and many others came on motorcycles and lined the church drive with large American flags.

The Marine Corps was there in force. There is nothing more moving and memorable than the class the United States Marine Corps brings to a ceremony. To watch twenty U.S. Marines parade forward one-by-one and salute their fallen friend was a moment I will never forget. Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc) was in attendance. And from the video of Ricky being water baptized to the Christian Life School choir singing "Song for an Unsung Hero" to the family tributes to the message given by Ricky's own brother, God was given glory.

On the way to the Veterans Cemetery, forty motorcyclists with American flags led the way. According to local police, the car procession to the cemetery stretched 5.5 miles. With a Marine gun salute and the giving of a Purple Heart, the young Corporal Ricky was laid to rest.

I don’t know what freedom means to you. I don’t know how REAL it is to you. How precious it is. How easy it comes for us and yet how hard-fought it was for others. It’s a freedom that wasn’t free at all.

But there are really TWO kinds of freedoms. There is freedom won by patriots like United States Marine Corporal Richard J. Nelson.

Elmer Davis said: “This land shall remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.”

John F. Kennedy said: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.”

And in the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln said: “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here … We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Freedom. But there is ANOTHER kind of freedom – this one isn’t represented by Corporal Nelson, but by the life of plain-old RICKY – and it isn’t a freedom that HE fought for or won … it is the freedom that comes to us by having a faith in Jesus Christ. And it is also a freedom that wasn’t free.

And it is THIS freedom, paid for by Jesus’ death on a cross, that allows us to be forgiven and have the guarantee of eternal life.

John 8:32 – "You shall know the truth … and the truth shall make you free."

Galatians 5:1 – "Stand firm, because it is for freedom that Christ has set us free."

Ephesians 3:12 – "In Christ and thru Christ we may approach God with freedom and confidence."

There is this wonderful freedom in Jesus – who stands between US and the full weight and consequences of our destructive choices … who made a way for us to be fully FREE and forgiven of all charges. We don’t have to make excuses or plead our case for why we’re normally really good people. He already knows who we are. He has a rap sheet on us a mile long that could condemn us for life – but He offers another way. A way for us to come to Him and be forgiven. It is the way of freedom … a clearing of the record … a ‘get out of jail free’ card … a way that could take a lifetime to explain but only a moment to receive.

Here in the United States, we have the privilege of having BOTH kinds of freedom available to us. But it is that SECOND kind of freedom that separates the men from the boys - and it is that SECOND kind of freedom that is the difference between life and death.

You can be free.