The First Memorial Day

It’s been a long time since we spent time there, but one of my favorite things used to be to go to Washington, D.C., and walk around the various museums and monuments and memorials in that city.

Now, we all know about the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Martin Luther King Memorial, the Holocaust Memorial, the WWII Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

But I wonder if you knew there’s also a memorial to John Paul Jones — the naval officer, not the bassist for Led Zeppelin. There’s a memorial to Eleanor Roosevelt, one for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, one for Albert Einstein, one for George Mason, and one that, for some reason, was erected in honor of Argentine General Jose de San Martin.

And, for reasons that aren’t really clear to me, there’s even a Titanic memorial in our nation’s capital.

We Americans seem to love our memorials. We even have a special DAY that we’ve set aside as a memorial.

Today, we celebrate our church’s traditional memorial service, and we prepare to mark Memorial Day tomorrow.

So, I think it’s appropriate for us to think for a bit this morning about WHY we have so many memorials, what makes them important, and, of course, what the Bible tells us about memorials.

And finally, at the conclusion of our service, we’ll partake in the Lord’s Supper, which is, itself, a memorial observance.

Webster’s dictionary defines a memorial as “something that keeps remembrance alive.” So, all those memorials in Washington, D.C., are there to help us remember the people who contributed to the founding of our nation, to its defense, to its improvement, and to its growth.

In a similar vein, all the grave markers in the cemetery next door are memorials to the people buried there. The markers are there to help us remember them.

Now, that’s not really surprising. You already knew that.

But what I want to tell you today is that when we look at the concept of memorials in the Bible — when we consider all the Bible says about REMEMBERING — we see another dimension to remembering that’s useful whenever we visit the grave of a loved one or the monument to some great leader from the past.

And it’s especially helpful when we gather to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

You see, we are people who forget.

We get caught up in the rush and the busyness of our everyday lives, doing the things that need to be done to keep the bills paid, the family fed, and the house clean, not to mention all the other things that vie for our attention.

And in all the hurly burly, in all the focus on the right now, we sometimes lose sight of how we got here and the people who sacrificed to make it happen, sometimes even giving their lives in the effort.

Perhaps we don’t actually FORGET those things. But I suspect we don’t really REMEMBER them most of the time, either.

In this regard, we’re not much different than the people of Israel in the Old Testament.

Guess how many times the word “remember” or one of its forms appears in the Old Testament.

You’re all wrong.

The word remember appears 187 times in 182 verses of the Old Testament. It appears another hundred or so times in the New Testament.

And a large proportion of those appearances have to do with God calling His people to remember HIM and to remember what He’d done for them.

We’re a people who easily forget — or at least a people who get so distracted that we don’t take the time to remember.

And God knows this about us. He knew it about the people of Israel in the Old Testament. And so, He led Asaph the temple musician, to write, in the 77th Psalm:

Psalm 77:11 NASB95

11 I shall remember the deeds of the Lord; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.

Just as we do, the people of Israel got themselves all caught up in the day-to-day routines of life.

They got distracted by news of war and politics, by concerns about this year’s crops, by the hardships of raising children, by rising prices and dwindling resources, and by all manner of other things, important and unimportant.

But Asaph pledges here to remember the deeds of the Lord, to remember His wonders of old.

And here’s the first lesson about remembering: Sometimes we have to REMIND ourselves to remember.

Sometimes, we have to force ourselves to take a break from the day-to-day and really REMEMBER how God has blessed us, how others have sacrificed for us, how many people have paved the way for us to be where we are today.

The psalms are full of such memories, because Asaph and King David and the other psalmists understood that remembering the goodness of God is about more than just remembering that God is good.

Remembering in the sense of memorializing something is about more than just recalling some events from history.

When I visit my father’s grave, I’m not going there to be reminded that he lived. That’s not something I’m going to forget.

When I visit my father’s grave, I spend time remembering who he was and what he was like and all the ways he helped shape me into the person I am today.

And I try to spend some time there thinking about how my life reflects the lessons he taught me and the sacrifices he made on my behalf and whether my life honors his memory.

I’d suggest that the same thing should be true when we visit the monuments and memorials in Washington, D.C.

How could we visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial without reflecting on both the progress this nation has made in civil rights AND the distance we still have to go to realize the dream he shared from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in that famous speech back in 1963?

How could we visit any of the various war memorials in Washington without considering whether we’ve honored the sacrifices so many men and women made for our freedom throughout the centuries?

How could we visit the Jefferson Memorial without thinking about whether our nation now looks anything like the one he envisioned when he wrote that “all men are created equal [and] endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”?

Whether they’re built to honor the accomplishments of great men and women, or simply to honor loved ones who’ve passed on, memorials are there not just to help us remember, but to encourage us to live in light of their past actions.

This is true today, and it was true in Old Testament Israel, where we see the institution of the first Memorial Day.

We’re going to take a brief look at the verse from the Book of Exodus in which God calls His people to prepare for the first Passover and tells them to observe it every year as a memorial.

And then, we’ll see how the Passover observance points us to the observance of the Lord’s Supper.

And when we’re done, I hope you’ll see that — just as Passover was intended not just as a reminder, but also as a time for reflection and introspection — so is the Lord’s Supper.

We’re looking at Exodus, chapter 12, verse 14. Let’s read it together.

Exodus 12:14 NASB95

14 ‘Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance.

Now, let me remind you where we are in the story of Israel at this point in Scripture.

The people of Israel have been in bondage in Egypt for 400 years. God has sent Moses as His representative to the Pharoah, demanding that this leader of Egypt free His Chosen People.

Of course, Pharoah declined. So, God sent a series of plagues designed to show His power and, ultimately, to cause the Pharoah to release the Israelites.

Nine plagues have taken place by this point in the story, and the tenth — the destruction of every firstborn male in Egypt — was soon to come.

But God provided a way of deliverance to the Israelites. He told them prepare a Passover feast, to kill a spotless lamb and to paint its blood on the lintels and doorposts of their houses.

The death angel would then pass over the houses with the blood on them, whereas he’d kill the firstborn in every home without the blood applied.

What we see in this chapter of Exodus is the description of the Passover meal, along with the preparations for it and for the arrival of God’s judgment on the Egyptians.

But God knew that people are easily distracted, that we all tend to forget.

And so, He commanded that this Passover meal be re-created each year afterward throughout the generations of the Hebrew people. And He commanded that it be observed permanently, or eternally.

The point was to have at least one day a year in which every person in Israel would have to stop and think about how they got to where they were.

The point was to remind them that it was GOD who’d rescued them from slavery in Egypt. And that He’d saved them because of the faith they’d placed in His promise.

He’d promised that His angel of death would pass over the houses with blood applied to their doorposts. And the people of Israel had believed Him, and they’d been saved from the judgment He brought upon the people of Egypt.

That should sound familiar to us, because the first Passover was meant as a type — a symbol — for what Jesus Christ would do at the cross.

Jesus, the sinless Lamb of God, gave His life as a sacrifice at the cross so that all who turn to Him in faith can be forgiven for their sins, rescued from their slavery to sin, and saved from God’s just judgment of sin.

We who’ve followed Him in faith have, as it were, had His blood applied to our lives, much as the Passover lamb’s blood was applied to the doorposts and lintels of those Jewish houses in Egypt.

And just as their trust in God’s promise to spare them from His judgment caused God to pass over them in His judgment, WE are saved from judgment through OUR trust in His promise.

By His grace, we’re spared God’s just wrath over our sins through faith in His promise that all who trust in Jesus and His atoning sacrifice at the cross will have eternal life.

And just as Passover was mandated for every Jew as a reminder of what God had done to save them, so the Lord’s Supper is also mandated for every Christian as a way to help us remember what Jesus did to save us.

But remember that the memorial of Passover is about more than just remembering historical facts.

It’s also about causing the Jews to take stock of their lives and see how — or whether — their faith in God and their obedience to Him had been informed and strengthened by their memories of what He’d done for them.

And it’s also about causing them to examine their lives to see whether they reflected the faith in God that they professed.

The same is true of the Lord’s Supper.

“The Lord’s Supper is observed as a remembrance of the suffering and death of Christ. It is much more, however, than simply recalling a historical fact; it is remembering in a way that fills the believer with thanksgiving and determines how he lives and acts in the present.” [Walter A. Elwell and Philip Wesley Comfort, Tyndale Bible Dictionary, Tyndale Reference Library (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), 879.]

Listen, we don’t observe the Lord’s Supper simply to remind us of the sacrifice Jesus made for us at the cross, though it DOES serve that purpose.

Our observance of the Lord’s Supper should ALSO, of course, be a time of thanksgiving. A time to praise God for His grace and to thank Jesus for His obedience.

It should be a time for us to reflect on our own lives. It should be a time for us to consider whether we’re living as people who’ve been freed from the bondage of sin.

It should be a time for us to think about how well we’re following the commands of Jesus. It should be a time for us to consider how well our love for Jesus and for others reflects HIS love for US.

We’re going to sing a closing song here in a moment. And then, I’m going to ask that all be seated while Diana plays Amazing Grace.

We won’t sing that song together. Instead, while it’s playing, I’d like you to be in prayer and self-reflection as we prepare to celebrate this memorial observance.

Pray that the Lord would reveal to you any unconfessed sin in your life. Pray that He’d reveal to you where you’re failing to trust Him.

Pray that He’d show you how to love Him more. And pray that He’d use this observance of the Lord’s Supper to strengthen your faith in Him.

This observance is supposed to be more than just a reminder of historical facts. Let’s make it so this morning.

Now, the Lord’s Supper is, for all the reasons I mentioned earlier, an important observance for individual followers of Jesus.

But this observance is also important to the fellowship of the church. It brings us together in a unique way and reminds us that we belong to one another in Christ Jesus.

It reminds us of the love He has for us and the love we’re called to have for one another.

Jesus commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper as an act of obedience to Him, as a way of proclaiming that we who follow Him in faith belong to Him, and as a way of reminding us what He did for us.

The Lord’s Supper reminds us that our hope for salvation rests only and completely on the sacrifice He made for us and in our place at the cross. It reminds us that our life is in Him.

And the fact that we share bread from one loaf reminds us that we are, together, the one body of Christ. It reminds us that we’re called to unity of faith, unity of purpose, and unity of love.

It reminds us that, just as He gave up the glory He had in heaven, we who’ve followed Jesus in faith are called to give up any claims we might think we have to our own lives as we follow Him.

Finally, it reminds us that, as we’ve been given the testimony of the Holy Spirit within us, we’re to share OUR testimony of salvation by grace through faith.

We’re not to be lukewarm Christians, but people who are on fire for the Lord. On fire to manifest the name of God in our actions AND in our words.

If you’re a baptized believer walking in obedience to Christ, I’d like to invite you to join us today as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Now, this sacred meal dates all the way back to when Jesus shared it with His disciples at the Last Supper on the night before He was crucified.

The conditions during the Last Supper were different than the conditions we have here today. But the significance was the same as it is today.

Jesus told His disciples that the bread represented His body, which would be broken for our transgressions.

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:26 NASB95

26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”

As Jesus suffered and died on that cross, his blood poured out with His life. This was always God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself.

“In [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:27–28 NASB95

27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; 28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.

Take and drink.

“Now, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

Maranatha! Lord, come!

Here at Liberty Spring, we have a tradition following our commemoration of the Lord’s Supper.

Please gather around in a circle, and let us sing together “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”