The Encourager
“Memorials”
Memorials
by Jeff Curtis
In Genesis chapter 23, Sarah dies and Abraham established a permanent memorial for her. He didn’t simply want a resting place for her body, a place that easily be forgotten by future generations. Instead, he bought a piece of property that had a cave on it – a permanent burial site that his descendants would always remember as the place where the mother of a great people lay.
An important part of biblical faith involves memorials to people that God blessed and used in history to fulfill His purposes (Hebrews 11). Believers should be encouraged to remember and recommit themselves to the faith of our physical and spiritual ancestors. Nothing is wrong with having a burial plot with a marker to identify the site where a loved one is buried. It is a way of honoring those who have gone on before us. It is a way to honor the life they lived. It is a way to remind us who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. This is especially true if the deceased was a faithful child of God, as was Sarah, because it encourages us and gives us direction and purpose in life.
Memorials in the Bible were not solely to exalt people. Even the “heroes of faith” (Hebrews 11) sinned and fell short of God’s will for their lives. David, for example, has been identified as “the greatest saint and the greatest sinner in the Bible.” Seventy-three psalms are attributed to him, but so are the sins of adultery and murder (2Samuel 11:2-4; Psalm 32; 51). Of the apostles Paul is singled out often as the one who did more to spread the Gospel than any of the others. While that may be true, it is his quick temper that caused him to part company with Barnabas, his former co-worker, rather than share the second missionary journey with John Mark; who had turned back from their first journey (Acts 13:13; 15:36-41).
The most meaningful memorials in the Bible were not limited by time or tied to special places. To the contrary, they involved acts of worship in remembrance of the great and mighty acts of God that stirred believers’ hearts to gratitude and led them to praise Him on special days and in meaningful ways.
The deeper significance of a memorial observance is found in the Passover and the following week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread, both of which were simply referred to and “Passover” by the first century. Moses instructed the Israelites about the Passover observance, “Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a powerful hand the Lord brought you out from this place” (Exodus 13:3). He went on with further admonition; “You shall tell your son on that day, saying, “It is because if what the Lord did of me when I came out of Egypt” (Exodus 13:8).
In a sense, Christians do the same thing in worship, by memorializing the cross of Christ. In a sense, we were all there because His cross was really our cross. We were the ones who deserved to die; but He took our place, bearing “our sins in His body on the cross” (1Peter 2:24). He is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). This is why Paul could say to the Corinthians, “Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed” (1Corinthians 5:7). He told the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20).
The same principle is true regarding the Lord’s Supper. It is a living memorial to the body and blood of Christ, which Christians in all places are to observe until the end of time. In the upper room, the Lord took the bread and said, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). Then He said of the fruit of the vine, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28).
When Christians partake of the bread and fruit of vine, the past sacrificial offering of the body of Jesus on the cross and pouring out of His blood for the remission of sins are reenacted in the present.
In a dynamic way, the past becomes present in the hearts and lives of God’s people; it molds and shapes us so that we live in hope and expectation of the future coming of the Lord and our resurrection unto eternal life.
