We Will Remember Them

There is a handsome bronze plaque on the south front of the rotunda at the University of Virginia honoring its students who made the supreme sacrifice in World War I. Conspicuously clear and haunting are these lines:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

we will remember them.

Memorials serve to remind of something significant. An event or deed that is worthy of passing down through the generations. On Memorial Day we remembered those men and women who fought in conflicts and wars that our nation has had to fight for the sake of our values of democracy and freedom.

We have fought both domestic and internationally for the sake of freedom. From fought to be free from the tyranny of a Monarch. We even fought each other in the Civil War for the sake of freedom for all men, and that fight seems to still be brewing today. We fought against ideologies that hinder freedom like the Communism of Stalin and Fascism of Hitler in two world wars. We defended the South Koreans and South Vietnamese from oppression, and we’ve freed countries like Saudi Arabia from the likes of dictators such as Saddam Hussein, and restrain the evil of men like Osama Bin laden. Where ever freedom has been threatened, God has used America help men and women and children be free, if anything, to be able to freely worship Him.

As I look at the graves in Kinder Cemetery, I am compelled to both remember and be reminded.

I remember the their sacrifice.

Our flag has a lot of blood on it. Memorials rightly cause us to remember that freedom is costly, and it has cost some their lives, others their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, even grandchildren.

We gather here today to remember their names. Remembering their names evokes their memories of the reality that they once lived as sons and daughters, husbands and wives. These people were community members, farmers, store owners, doctors, clergy, mill workers. And when it was time for them to protect their livelihood, their family, and their community, they stood up and went forward. And each grave stone helps us remember that some did not come back; that our country, our community, and our church has had to sacrifice and suffer at the hands of death for the sake of something greater. Remembering is one purpose of memorials.

I am reminded of something Greater t come

Remembering sacrifice can be disheartening. Death brings sadness, even despair. War is part of living in a broken world. As long as men have broken opinions, war will exist, which means we will always have an enemy and will always have sacrifice.

But David shows me something about the power of remembering.

Psalm 143:1–6 ESV

Hear my prayer, O Lord; give ear to my pleas for mercy! In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness! Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. For the enemy has pursued my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead. Therefore my spirit faints within me; my heart within me is appalled. I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah

David is lamenting a bad situation. He is on the run from his enemies. in verses 1-4, he says that though no one is righteous in God’s sight, he has done nothing that deserves death. In verse 4, David describes his spirit as being desolate, overcome with numbness in the face of great difficulty.

In such circumstances, what does David do to find rest? What does he do to find peace?

Psalm 143:5 ESV

I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands.

David turns to memorials of God’s salvation to give him peace now, and hope for the future.

David recalls Yahweh’s past deeds (probably Yahweh’s many rescues). He looks to the past to find confidence to live in a troubled present and to engender hope for the future (see Ps. 77:11–20). After all, considering God’s works in the past (days of long ago) would bring to mind the numerous times when God saved his helpless people, but perhaps none more dramatic than the crossing of the R(e)ed Sea. Caught between an angry Pharaoh and his elite chariot troop and an impassable sea, God opened up a path for them through the waters to safety. David, knowing his own inability to save himself, now calls on the God of the exodus to do so. God’s hands have worked wonders, so the psalmist spreads his hands towards heaven in a posture of prayer and appeals to God to intervene. He compares his intense need for God to that of a parched land that desperately needs the rains (see Ps. 42:1). In his desperation, he asks God to respond quickly. God’s face is a metaphor for his presence, and if God chooses to hide his face, the psalmist will be a dead person (like those who go down to the pit).

But God does not hide his face, he saves David. As matter of fact, God saves all who cry out to him.

There is another cemetery in Jerusalem that has a graves just like this one. There is one grave over there that has a different testimony. It does cause to mourn death, but it points us to life., because Jesus is not in it.

God saves us from the tyranny of sin and his wrath by sending his Son to dies on a cross for your sin. And if you repent of your sin and put your faith in his death and resurrection, you will be saved for God’s wrath, and the grave will not hold you forever. For jesus promises you a new and eternal resurrection.