Memorial Day Prayer

Father, we are so grateful for who you are and what you've done.
We are sorry for the times when we have neglected to follow You.
Help us to know the difference between
loving our enemy
and defending the innocent;
praying for those who persecute us
and protecting the persecuted.
We pray for those with family members in the services,
especially those who are deployed
we pray for those with lost loved ones:
whether from death from violence and war;
from sickness and disease;
or spiritual death:
by ignorance or rebellion.

Joshua 4:1-9, paraphrased from the NIV

When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan River&Joshua called together twelve men from each tribe of Israel&and said to them, "Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, **6 **to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' **7 **tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."

**8 **So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones&and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down. **9 **Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day."

What's Going On Here? (Re-tell the story)

  • Israelites - wandering for 40 years;
  • Moses has died; Joshua is leader.
  • Jordan River is in the way;
  • priests carry the ark of the covenant (container of the Torah) into the river; the river parts;
  • Israel crosses over; priests stay in the middle (joke about priests being left behind); (being left behind in church by parents)
  • God asks Joshua to build a memorial.

Remember/Do Not Forget

Deuteronomy 8:2 "You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forth years&"

4:9, "Keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen&"

8:18, "You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power&"

6:12, "Watch yourself, that you do not forget the LORD who brought you from the land of Egypt&"

15:15, "You shall remember that you were a slave&and the LORD your God redeemed you."

8:11, "Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments&"

8:19, "If you ever forget the LORD your God&you will surely perish."

Why We Need Memorials

From Scientific American

  • Memories get locked away into gray matter.
  • They're accessed by neural pathways (axions/white matter).
  • Gray matter shrinks, yes; but it seems that its actually the white matter that disintegrates.
  • It means that our memories are literally "locked away," there in our brains, but we just can't access them anymore! It's not that you've forgotten the password to your favorite website; it's that you can't even find your way back to your favorite website!
  • Reminders based in the senses (smell, touch, sight) can help jar those neurotransmitters back into action.

Story About Memory/Forgetting Something/Etc.

I had a story about an example of forgetting something, but I don't remember it anymore&

Why God Asks Us To Remember

Example: school curriculum: math, history, science, reading. All good topics, but didn't seem that there was any relation between any of them.

Worship with no history becomes small.

Without history, without perspective, it becomes insignificant. Biblical worship must be situated.

Worship with no history becomes experience-based.

When worship has no history behind it, it means that it is based only on my own experience. However, my experience, in the grand scheme of the 7 billion people alive now and the 107 billion people who have ever lived.

Worship with no history becomes individualistic.

Biblical worship is never just about me and my worship. Instead, biblical and ancient worship is always about remembering all of God's saving acts in history.

How to Ensure Worship Is Historic, That It Remembers

Remember: Greek: anamnesis: has the force of "making present," "making alive," "making real."

When we remember someone's birthday or our anniversary or a death, we typically don't do so just be saying, "Hey, I remembered today's our anniversary!" and then moving on with your day like nothing happened. You take action on that memory!

Proclaiming and Reenacting Our History

Preaching

  • Declaring what God has done which leads us to respond.
  • Deuteronomy is all a sermon: and it concludes with a call to action: "Choose life that you might live!"

Creeds

  • Beliefs that necessitate action.
  • Creeds are more than just intellectual ascent to a set list of propositions. When we declare "We believe in God the Father; we believe in Jesus Christ; we believe in the Holy Spirit," we are doing more than just droning on about Facts with a capital "F" and truths with capitals "T's." When we say, "Your Kingdom come, Thy will be done," we aren't just praying that hopefully someone else will do God's will...rather, that WE are the ones who do God's will, we are the ones that enable the Kingdom to come!
  • When we take action on our remembering, it actually changes us! And change is good, because if we kept going on in the same way, we would never move forward.
  • That's why I keep accidentally driving to the house I used to live in instead of the one I live in now. My creed is "I live on 23rd Street," and my actions reflect that. But sometimes my actions still reflect my old creed, "I love on Jackson Ave."

Songs

  • Lyrics and rhythms that reflect lives and reality.
  • If the words we sing take no meaning in the way we live our lives, then the words we sing have no meaning at all.
  • When we sing, "Turn your ear to heaven," but then turn our ears to the hype and propaganda of a world-gone-wrong, do our words have meaning?
  • When we sing that God is our tower and refuge and strength, but then, at first signs of trouble, we find refuge in the bottle or in our wallets or in the arms of another, do our words have meaning?
  • When we leave this place, hearing the good news of what God has done, do we remember? Do we take twelve stones and place them in the river that God has just opened wide for us? Or do we let our pride, our cynicism, our self-centeredness take over instead?

Examples

  1. Tell at least one person this week about how you came to know God (or, if you came to Christ at a young age, a time when you were drawn closer to Him). How did you come to salvation? Talk about your feelings and emotions then, the circumstances going on in your life.
  2. Thing about the different mementos in your life: scrapbooks, airplane tickets, photos, souvenirs, tokens from events long gone. Do you have any from any spiritual events in your life? Do you have any physical reminders of your baptism? Your rebellion against God and how He brought you back to Him? A time of great growth? Of great pain but amazing comfort? Many of us don't think to make "souvenirs" of these kinds of things? But why not? Why not make a physical reminder? We forget too easily; we need all the help we can get.
  3. Journal. Seriously, start journaling your prayers, your growth, your lack of growth, your thoughts on Scripture, things that make you excited, things that make you anxious, things that get you hopeful, things that make you question.

Conclusion

The fact of the matter is, God has moved in history, bringing salvation to each and every one of us. And, because of our collective amnesia, our God has called us to remember, not in a vague, ethereal kind of way, but in way that takes action, that's built out of rock, that will stand for days and years to come. We should be building memorials, so when our children or our friends ask, "What do these stones mean," we can boldly proclaim the God Who Acts On Our Behalf.

So, my friends, my brothers and sisters, when we sing our last song, when we walk out of these doors, how will we remember God this week and in the weeks to come? Will we just move through a parted Jordan River, and then move forward, and forget? Or will be stop, take a beat, and build a memorial that will point us to the God of Ages, the Ancient of Days, the One who has acted in the past, is living within us now, and will one day soon bring the whole of creation under His glorious and unending reign? Which will choose. Let's stand and pray to our God together.