No Greater Love

A group of men from our Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship Atlanta chapter gathered for one of our twice-a-month lunches. We were looking forward to good food, fellowship, testimonies, maybe a little Bible study, and talking about the things of God together.

What most of us didn't realize was that Memorial Day was only three days away.

But the Vietnam veterans in the room surely knew it.

One of them, Dick McBain — a Wednesday Warrior and FGBMFA national executive team member — asked if he could show us a short slideshow he had put together in honor of Memorial Day.

He began showing photos from his time serving in Vietnam.

At first, they just looked like old military photographs.

Young men smiling beside helicopters. Mud-covered soldiers standing in jungle clearings. Friends leaning against sandbags. Teenagers and twenty-year-olds trying to act tougher than they probably felt.

But almost every other slide came with a story.

“This was my friend who didn’t make it…”

“He was killed a few days after this picture…”

“We lost him here…”

“He died trying to protect the others…”

About halfway through the presentation, we stopped Dick and asked him to go back to the beginning.

Nobody wanted to rush through the photos anymore. We wanted to hear the stories.

One by one, the men in the pictures stopped being strangers from another generation and became real to us.

These were sons who never came home to their mothers.

Husbands who never grew old with their wives.

Fathers who never met the children their wives were carrying when they died.

Young men whose families received folded flags instead of homecomings.

Some laid down their lives to save their friends.

And suddenly the words of Jesus carried a deeper weight:

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”  — John 15:13

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Less than a week before Dick told us stories about the friends he lost in Vietnam, two close friends and I were driving from Dulles Airport into Washington DC on our way to the Museum of the Bible before the Rededicate 250 event the next day.

As we looked out the window, we saw row after row of white grave markers stretching across the hillside.

Arlington National Cemetery.

We were awed. Deeply moved. Amazed by the sheer number of those who had been laid to rest there.

And we thanked God for the men and women who gave their lives in service to our country. We thanked Him for the freedom we have as citizens of America because of their sacrifice.

Then almost immediately, we looked up and saw one of the largest signs I have ever seen towering over the city:

Museum of the Bible.

And we paused in prayer again.

“Thank You, Lord, for the freedom we have as citizens of Heaven because of the One the Bible reveals — Jesus Christ, who gave His life so we could be rescued from death and live eternally with Him.”

And again, the words of Jesus hit us:

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” — John 15:13

Memorial Day reminds us that freedom is costly.

The cross reminds us what it cost God.

And the rows of white markers with crosses at Arlington National Cemetery remind us that love is never abstract.It has names. Faces. Families. Stories. Sacrifice.

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This Memorial Day, let us remember.

Remember the men and women who gave their lives serving others.

Remember the families who still carry both honor and heartbreak.

Remember that the freedoms we enjoy were purchased with the lives of others.

And remember our Savior, Jesus Christ, who laid down His life so we could truly live.

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Dick McBain wrote a powerful book about his experiences in Vietnam titled A Reluctant Warrior’s Vietnam Combat Memories, preserving stories and memories of the men who served beside him and the God who stood beside him.