Memorial Days
By Tom Ellsworth
On May 30th, 1868, General James A. Garfield (a Christian Church minister, and later president of the U.S.) stood before a crowd of some 5,000 in Arlington National Cemetery to memorialize those who had given their lives during the Civil War. Nearly 20,000 fallen soldiers were honored that day and their graves decorated. Thus, the name “Decoration Day” was coined. In time, the day grew to include all wars. From the snows of Valley Forge to the sands of Afghanistan, some have paid the ultimate price and deserve our utmost respect and our highest honor. Eventually, the name was changed to Memorial Day to honor all Americans who gave their lives to preserve our nation and our freedoms.
One of God’s greatest gifts to us is the gift of memory, but I’ve noticed that the older I grow the less reliable my memory becomes. Perhaps you’ve noticed that, too. Thus, the importance of a memorial. Have you ever had somebody say, “Remember when…” and you respond, “I hadn’t thought about that in ages.” It took that person’s prompting to recall to your conscious thoughts a treasure you had tucked away in your mind.
There are four major reasons we forget:
1. Interference – we have too much mental data (i.e., the change of a pin number or password, a new phone number, a new address, etc.).
2. Retrieval failure – with age it becomes harder and harder to pull out the information.
3. Purposeful forgetfulness – some moments we try to forget.
4. Embellishment – the story changes with the passing of time, the fish we caught keeps getting bigger, the distance we had to walk to school gets longer, the difficulty of that monumental task gets harder as the years of storytelling go by.
Here then is the purpose of a memorial. The word literally means “to remember back” – and our God is a God of memorials because he knew the weakness of our minds. The Lord knew the sights, sounds, smells and feel of a memorial could trigger our memories regarding a sacred moment when we might not otherwise do so. God created several memorials – the rainbow, the Passover Supper, the Tabernacle, even baptism memorializes the death, burial and resurrection. The one which is perhaps most familiar is the Lord’s Supper. While we as a nation annually celebrate Memorial Day to remember the great sacrifices for our freedom, we come together weekly to celebrate a spiritual “Memorial Day.” I believe the Lord’s Supper should be the highlight, the pivotal moment, the most sacred aspect of our worship service.
I also believe the elders are responsible to protect its prominence in our corporate worship. In our limited time together on Sunday mornings, it is easy to overlook or even diminish the importance of the Lord’s Supper in favor of other worship elements. After all, we want to be creative in our worship before God. However, that creativity must not come at the expense of the centrality of the Lord’s Supper. We are to partake in a manner worthy of his sacrifice (1 Cor. 11:27-29)!
As an elder, here’s another challenge. If you have the privilege of preparing the congregation to participate in taking the Lord’s supper, consider the following thoughts:
Prepare with Prayer – pray about your thoughts before you even begin writing. Pray for the right words and right heart in your presentation.
Be brief – two minutes should be sufficient. You have one goal – to prepare the worshipper for communion. A long meditation can be counterproductive and cause minds to wander, thus defeating the purpose.
Be familiar with your topic – practice your meditation. Don’t just blandly read it; make eye contact, speak with conviction and let worshippers see your heart.
Stay on target – over the years I’ve heard great meditations that had nothing to do with the Lord’s Supper. The singular purpose of a communion meditation is to focus the congregation’s minds and hearts on this remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Remember these Scriptural themes as you prepare.
· The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic memorial – simple elements celebrating a profound truth.
· The Lord’s Supper is an enduring memorial – we will celebrate it until Jesus returns.
· The Lord’s Supper is a personal memorial – Jesus died for me!
· The Lord’s Supper is a costly memorial – God paid the ultimate price, the life of his Son!
Some years ago, while we were visiting our nation’s capital, I stopped at a souvenir stand to look at a small brass replica of the Marine Corps War Memorial fashioned after the Marines who raised the flag atop Mt. Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima. The man behind the counter seemed oblivious to that event in the South Pacific, “Cheap,” he said, “it’s only ten dollars.” I held the miniature sculpture and thought, “There was nothing cheap about this moment in history – just ask the Marines who landed there in February of 1945 and witnessed one of the costliest battles of World War II. Thirty-five days later, more than 6,700 US military personnel had given their lives for this tiny piece of real estate and another 20,000 had been wounded. The word “cheap” seemed insultingly out of place at that moment. No memorial, no matter how small in size, can ever be considered cheap when it cost so much to create!
We dare not become as oblivious to the cross of Christ as this merchant was to the raising of our nation’s flag of Mt. Suribachi. Throughout our nation’s history, countless thousands gave up the freedom to live so that we might live in freedom.
Only One had to die so that we might be liberated from sin; He and He alone deserves our highest honor and supreme allegiance!