Special Edition - Memorial Day Address 2026 - John 15:13

In this special episode of Faith Comes By Hearing, Dr. Larson addresses the Iowa community of Algona on this day that the country honors the fallen. Drawing on the words of Jesus, the Apostle Paul, and Martin Luther's 1526 treatise "Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved," this address calls us to remember the fallen not merely with sentiment, but with the kind of costly, daily gratitude worthy of the sacrifice they made.

Information about The American Association of Lutheran Churches (TAALC) can be found at www.taalc.org

Transcript

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In the cascading layers of noise in our ever-changing world, discovering a space for reflection and inspiration is increasingly rare. Welcome then to Faith Comes by Hearing, a unique podcast series that cuts through the clamor, carrying the timeless messages of the gospel into our lives with renewed relevance. Join Dr. Carrie Larson, the presiding pastor of the American Association of Lutheran Churches, as he ventures into the challenges of everyday life and the deep need to hear the truth that we are saved by grace, through faith, through Christ Jesus alone. Each episode is an invitation not just to listen, but to truly hear and embrace the good news of Christ Jesus for you and for all.

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And I could tell you that Luther's question never really goes away. It just takes on different forms. Does what I do matter? Is it right? Does God see it? Does God honor it? Does it honor God? These men and women we remember today answered those questions not with words but with their lives. And I believe with everything in me that the answer they gave was the right one. Luther opened his treatise with a distinction that I want to plant firmly in your minds this morning, because it is one that is of a most important idea for free people. He wrote, a distinction made, must be made rather, between an occupation and the man who is in it, between a work and the doer of it. He was making a point that our culture has largely forgotten. The office of the soldier, and you can read sailor, marine, and airman in this. The defender of peace, the guardian of the innocent, the shield against those who would destroy what is good. The office is right and godly. It does not belong to any one era, it does not belong to any one nation. It belongs to the order of human society itself. Now Luther compared the soldier to a physician. And when I first read this, I was shocked. He wrote, A good physician, when a disease is so bad and so great that he has to cut off a hand, a foot, an ear, an eye, must do so to save the body. Looking at from that point of view, the member that he cuts off, he seems a cruel and merciless man. But looked at from the point of the body, which he intends to save, it turns out that he is a fine and true man and does a work that is good and Christian. The same is true of the soldier. Looked at from the narrow view, the violence, the destruction, the death, it seems the opposite of love. But looked at from a wider view, the families protected, the innocent shield, the tyrant turned back, the peace preserved. It is one of the most profound acts of love a human being can perform. This is not a comfortable idea, but it is the truth. And the truth is this that men and women we honor today were not instruments of hatred. They were instruments of love. A costly, dangerous, and emptying love. But love nonetheless. Greater love has no one than this, said Jesus of Nazareth. Than to lay down one's life for one's friend. And here's something Luther wrote that I want every veteran in this crowd to hear. He wrote it for soldiers in the 16th century, but I promise you it reaches across every century, even into the courthouse square of Algona, here in 2026. If a man goes into battle with a good and well-instructed conscience, he fights well. Since a good conscience never fails to make great courage and a bold heart. A good conscience. That phrase carries a world of meaning. This is not about moral perfection. No human being arrives at the battlefield without faults or impact imperfections. In my line of work, we call it sin. A good conscience is something more specific, the knowledge deep in the marrow. That what you do is right, that you're serving something larger than yourself, that the office you hold has been entrusted to you by God and by your country, and you are carrying it out faithfully. In my 20 years of service, I saw what that looked like. I saw young sailors and officers who understood, even if they could not put words to it, that they were not serving their own ambitions. They were serving their shipmates, their families at home, their country, and their God. And that knowledge gave them the kind of courage that no training manual can ever offer. There is also a warning about what happens when conscience is corrupted. When a soldier fights not from duty or love, but from greed or bloodlust or the desire for glory alone, the office becomes twisted. The sword which God ordained for peace becomes an instrument of the very chaos it was meant to prevent. And that is why we do not honor war. We honor warriors. We honor the men and the women who carried the weight of an awesome responsibility. It did not corrupt them, who served not for their own honor, but from obedience to something higher. That distinction matters enormously today because the men and women carved into the monuments were not in love with war. They were in love with what peace makes possible. The life you are living right now, my friends, in this town on this spring morning. And if we truly honor the dead, not just today with flags and bugles and gatherings like this, but every day, then I believe we owe them three things. First, we owe them our memory. Zicharon was an act of representing the past into the present, making it live again in the community's consciousness. This is the kind of remembrance we owe our fallen because we cannot truly honor any abstraction or concept. We can only honor a person. Second, we owe them our integrity. I'm not here to preach to you about politics, but I will say this. A commanding officer I once served with used to tell young sailors, every time you cut a corner, you're spending someone else's courage. The men and women we honor today did not die for a perfect nation. They knew America's flaws, but they believed, they believed with full hearts that the idea of America was worth defending. The idea that all people are created equal, that liberty is not a privilege for the powerful, but a birthright of the human soul. That government exists to serve the people, not the other way around. The Bible talks about the governing authorities existing to protect the good in peace and punish the wicked. When we become a people who are dishonest in our dealings, we look the other way of injustice, who treat freedom as a default setting rather than a purchase gift. We are betraying the very order of our fallen and what they defended. Do you want to honor them? I'm sure you do. Then be the kind of citizen they died believing are possible. Be honest, be just. Care for your neighbor. Engage your community. Show up. The greatest monument you can build to a fallen soldier is not made of stone, but a community, a county, a state, a country, worthy of their sacrifice. Third, we owe them our hope. This is where I, as a pastor, must speak plainly. Luther ended his treatise with a prayer he wrote for the soldier going into battle, as one of the most moving things I've ever read. He told the soldier to pray these words before drawing his sword. Heavenly Father, here I am, according to thy divine will and the service of my Lord. I will rely not at all on this obedience and work of mine, but put myself freely at the service of thy will and believe from the heart that only the innocent blood of thy dear son, my Lord Jesus Christ, redeems and saves me. On this I stay. On this I live and die. On this I fight and do all. That their sacrifice is not a lost in the void. That every watch stood in the dark, every mile marched, every moment of courage in the face of death, it matters. Not just here, not just today, but for a generation of people yet to be born. Dear brother, dear sister, if you are a veteran standing and sitting here today, I want to speak directly to you for a moment. Can a soldier too be saved? The answer is a thunderous yes. Not because soldiers are morally superior, not because the act of war earns salvation, but because salvation was never about earning. It was always about grace. And that grace covers the battlefield just as sure as it covers the sanctuary. You, my brother and sister, carry a sacred office. You bore a burden that most people will never fully understand. God knows those who have served in military service in peacetime and in war come home carrying things that life in the civilian world cannot understand. I once served as a pastor for a World War II veteran. He was a Marine from Iowa. And when he was in when he enlisted, the Marine Corps discovered he had a particular condition. A condition, with no offense to you, Marines, few of you possess. He knew how to type. During the war in the Pacific, he performed his duties honorably from the Marine Corps Barracks Treasure Island in the Bay of San Francisco, which towed thousands of Marines. It served as a major transit and processing point for Marines deployed to the Pacific. He held on to guilt because he did not storm the beaches of Guadacanal, witness red American blood stain the beaches of Iojima, nor dodge the sniper's bullet in Okinawa. He would not let go of the guilt that he came home, and many did not. And I tell you what I told him. Your survival is not a betrayal of those who did not come home. You carry their memory forward. This is your new orders, and it is a sacred one. And the families, spouses, and children, young and old, the parents, the siblings who gave their loved ones to this country, this community owes you a debt that it can never fully repay. But we can try, we can show up, and we can remember life. And we can make sure that your sacrifice, because it's yours too, is never forgotten. There is a moment in every military funeral when the honor guard lifts the flag from the casket, they fold it 13 folds, every fold precise, deliberate, meaningful. And when a white gloved officer, which does, takes a knee before the family and presents the folded flag with these words, on behalf of the President of the United States and the United States Army, or the United States Marine Corps, or the United States Navy, or the United States Air Force, or the United States Coast Guard, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved ones' honorable and faithful service. A grateful nation. Are we? Are we truly grateful? The soldier's office is as needful and useful to the world as eating and drinking. That without the sword held by the righteous hands, civilization dissolves. The peace, that peace, is not a natural state of a fallen world. It is a gift purchased at great cost, maintained by courage of ordinary people willing to pay the cost. The men and women we remember on this Memorial Day paid it. Gratitude is not a feeling. Gratitude is a practice. It is something we do, something we do with our hands, something we do with our time, something we do with our gifts, something we do with our life. So today, as we walk away from this courthouse square back to our trucks, our cars, and to our homes, and we move on with our afternoon plans, let us carry something with us. Let us carry the names. Let us carry the faces. Let us carry the ancient question: can soldiers be saved? And the answer written in blood across every generation of American history. Yes. A thousand times yes, because that blood is not theirs, but of Jesus Christ. And may we, the living, who are here because of them, may we live not to earn what they purchased with their blood, for that debt is beyond our pain. May we live instead as people who've received an undeserved gift, the gift of this nation's freedom, and beneath it the deeper gift of grace that covers soldiers and civilians alike. Not by our works, but by God's grace alone we stand. Again, greater love has no one than this to lay one's life down for a friend. They laid theirs down. And least we could do is live our lives well. May God bless the memory of the fallen. May God comfort those who mourn. And may God in his grace make us equal to the gift they gave. May God bless us and may God bless the United States of America. America.