Greater Love

Some things are important to remember, some people are important to remember

Jesus wants us to remember. When we eat that bread, we should remember his body.

How he gave himself over to be beaten, and bruised, crushed for our iniquities, battered and bloody, so badly disfigured that he didn’t even look human anymore.

When we share the Lords Supper together, I get wrapped up in it, in dwelling on the suffering of Christ.

There is something about the experience that makes it powerful. When we eat the bread and we drink the juice,

We remember His blood, His blood that he poured out for us to pay the price for our sins.

The Holy Spirit moves and works in our hearts, it brings us closer together as a church family, it brings us closer together in our relationship with Him

As we remember, we remember His Service, His Sacrifice, His Love

C: Sometimes to remember, we visit a Memorial, Monument

There are civil war memorials around here, they help us to remember History, the price that some paid.

There are other memorials.

In Wash DC, I wasn’t with them, but Sally and the Kids went to the Capitol and saw the War Memorials

You know how Alex is, he runs everywhere, having a great time. Laughing and joking, jumping up and down, climbing stairs balancing on hand-rails, an all American boy, he is a joy to take places because he always has fun.

But when they went to the Vietnam memorial, and that wall with the names of men and women who paid the ultimate price, and there are family members there to find the name of their loved one, leave some flowers for them, make a pencil rubbing of the name, leave a letter. It’s powerful

Alex became completely quiet, and even an 11yr old boy can’t help but stand in quiet awe of the magnitude of what the wall represents, all of the tears shed by mothers and wives, and children and husbands of loved ones who will not be coming home.

IT is good to remember their Service, their Sacrifice, their Love

The ultimate memorial, the one that outlasts, outshines and overshadows them all

Is the The Cross

I get a shiver down my back sometimes when I look at it

It has been around for 2000 years

We put them in our churches, on top of our churches

We put them on necklaces around our necks

We put them on pictures up on the wall

Like sharing the Lords Supper, it reminds us, focuses us on Christ and his work on the Cross

I look at the Cross and I can almost see his face, beaten and disfigured, yet somehow still full of love as he looks down at me.

Blood trickling down from the thorns that were shoved into his scalp by the Roman Soldiers

I can almost hear his voice as he speaks those words, Father Forgive them they do not know what they are doing.

Here is God, in human flesh. All the power in the universe is His, he could stop the torture at any time, he could call down a legion of angels to rescue him, to avenge him and destroy those who would sentence him to die like a criminal

But no – He stayed, He chose to stay on that cross, No one took his life, He laid it down. For us