A Memorable Reminder: Memorial Day 2007 Joshua 4:1-9; 21-24 CBC May 26, 2007
Opening Worship Joke:
A motorcycle patrolman was rushed to the hospital with an inflamed appendix. The doctors operated and advised him that all was well. However, the patrolman kept feeling something pulling at the hairs on his chest. Worried that it might be second surgery the doctors hadn’t told him about, he finally got enough energy to pull his hospital gown down enough so he could look at what was making him so uncomfortable.
Taped firmly across his hairy chest were three wide strips of adhesive tape, the kind that doesn’t come off. Written in large black letters was the sentence, “Get well quick..... from the nurse you gave a ticket last week."
Sermon Joke:
There’s a story about a city fellow who was visiting relatives on a farm and the farmer gave a whistle and his dog herded the cattle into the corral, and then latched the gate with her paw.
"Wow, that’s some dog. What’s her name?" The forgetful farmer thought a minute, and then asked, "What do you call that red flower that smells good and has thorns on the stem?" "A rose?" "That’s it!" The farmer turned to his wife. "Hey Rose, what do we call this dog?"
There are times when we humans can we be quite forgetful. Been there, done that, haven’t you? What is your worst happening of forgetfulness? Did you ever get in your car, reach for your keys and didn’t have them? Or you couldn’t remember your own phone number or house number? Or the street where you lived? Or the names of some of your children?!
This weekend is known as Memorial Day Weekend. It is filled with cookouts, the Indianapolis 500 or the Coca Cola 600, parades and many other special observances. Yet what is Memorial Day and what should we do on Memorial Day. The dictionary defines a memorial as the following:
1) Anything intended to preserve the memory of a person or event; something, which serves to keep something else in remembrance; a monument. –Macaulay
2. Something, such as a monument or holiday, intended to celebrate or honor the memory of a person or an event.
We view Memorial Day as an opportunity to reflect and remember those who fought for our country and died while protecting this country from harm. Memorial Day started out known as Decoration Day. The beginning of Memorial Day started in part to a group of ladies who were committed to placing flowers on the graves of confederate soldiers after the ending of the civil war. One story that is told of the start of Memorial Day happened in 1863 in Columbus Mississippi. A mother had gone to place flowers on the graves of her two sons who had served during the Civil war as Confederate Soldiers. After placing flowers at those graves, it was then noticed that this woman went to the far corner of the cemetery where there were mounds built up signifying where several Union soldiers had been buried. Not knowing anything about this individuals the mother placed flowers on those mounds capturing the spirit of what Memorial Day is all about. The story has been passed down that someone asked the mother what she was doing placing flowers on the graves of Union soldiers. He said you should know better than that. To which the mother replied. “I know that these are graves for the Union soldiers. And I also know that somewhere in the North there is a mother or a young wife who is mourning for her children as I am mine and therefore I place these flowers here to remember them as I remember my own sons as well.
Through those actions, those groups of ladies started what has turned out to be a special holiday known as Memorial Day. It is a day that is set aside for us to remember those who gave their lives in the armed forces.
And as we celebrate Memorial Day weekend, I want to share with you another thing that we should remember in our lives. Memorial Day is to be a day that is set aside not just to remember what our military has done but to also serve as a reminder to what the Lord has done in our lives.
A memorial helps us keep a memory of something significant that has happened alive in our hearts and minds. In a Biblical sense a memorial is a sacrifice, a monument or an event that brings us into remembrance of something that God has done. God knew we would have a tendency to forget, that often times we suffer from spiritual amnesia or Alzheimer. And so God encourages us to have memorials. To not live in the past but to remember the past and to celebrate the past through memorials.
All throughout Scripture there is the mention of a memorial. What does it mean according to the Bible? Glad you asked: Memorial in the bible comes from a word that means to pierce or penetrate the memory. It is designed to jar us into being reminded what God has done for us. These memorials come into our lives and demand that we give pause to study those memorials and be reminded that God has been at work in our lives.
And so today, in our time together, I want to ask you are you ready to celebrate Memorial Day. Do you need a memorable reminder to be reminded of all that God has done for you. This morning as we celebrate Memorial Day I want us to preserve the memory of the importance of Memorial Day by using stones to help us remember several attributes of God:
As you came into worship this morning you were given a stone. As we look at our passage this morning, I encourage you to keep that stone near you as we reflect on the impact Memorial Day should have on our lives.
I am going to shock you this morning, but I am only going to share with you one point this morning, but don’t worry there is plenty to talk about with this point. And the point I want to share with you today is the value of memorial stones and how they should help us to:
I. Remember God’s Help In The Past
Our lesson today opens up in the 4th chapter of Joshua. Let me give you a little background of this story. In chapter 3 God had told Joshua to gather his people and that he was going to deliver them to freedom as they were to enter the land of Canaan. And in order to reach their final destination they just needed to cross the Jordan River. And so God tells Joshua to prepare his people to cross the Jordan river and commands Joshua to tell his leaders when they arrive at the Jordan they are to go and stand in the middle of the river. Now that does not seem to be a big deal does it?
Well there was only one problem. During the time that God told the people to cross the Jordan the river was at flood stage. The waters would have been impossible to cross, but God had told them that they would be able to cross. In verse 12 of chapter 3 he said that as soon as the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant set foot in the Jordan that the waters would stop and stand up in a heap. Sound familiar. It’s another situation like the Red Sea yet it’s the Jordan River.
Well I want to get to our passage today so let me sum it up by saying that the end of chapter 3 shares with us that as soon as the priests stepped foot in the Jordan the waters did stop and they stopped long enough so that the whole nation of Israel over 2 million strong could cross it on dry ground.
Verses 1-9 of chapter 4 speak to us that God wanted to make sure that Israel never forgets this great miracle. To help the Israelites remember how God had acted on their behalf, God encouraged Joshua to select twelve people one from each tribe and to gather twelve stones and erect a memorial as a reminder and witness that they had made this crossing.
It was important to never forget this memorable act of God. Every time someone gathered at this river they would see this memorial. And it would remind people of what God had done in the past. It reminded them of God’s blessings in helping them move to a land of their own. It reminded them of God’s provision as he provided a miracle to allowing them to cross the Jordan. Those stones were set aside so that they would always remember God’s Help for them in the past.
It is evident that was the purpose for God inviting the leaders to place that memorial. In verse 6 Joshua tells them that those stones are to serve as a sign among you. “In the future, when your children ask you “What do these stones mean? Tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off.”
These stones were to hold such significant meaning that once again in verse 22 they are asked again what these stones mean and Joshua says it is to tell them that this is the spot where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground.
23 For the LORD your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and he kept it dry until you were all across, just as he did at the Red Sea when he dried it up until we had all crossed over. 24 He did this so that all the nations of the earth might know the power of the LORD, and that you might fear the LORD your God forever."
That is why these rocks were put here. A memorial of faith, a memorial of the supernatural at work in a place that seemed impossible. A memorial that reminded them where man couldn’t, God could. A memorial that reminded them that they had passed from death to life, from a hope perceived to a hope received, from talking about milk and honey to drinking milk and eating honey.
Friends today as you celebrate Memorial Day, there are some who honestly don’t know what Memorial Day is all about. The focus might be on picnics and racing instead of the sacrifices that were made. We should allow this weekend to be a weekend in which we make memorial stones reminding us of God’s help for us in the past.
So today I want to do what Joshua did and I want to encourage you to take your stone and to make it a memorial stone. I don’t know what you do after service on Sundays. You might go and get something to eat and roast the preacher about how long or how boring he was. At least that’s what they do at my house. But anyways we always ask our children what they learned or did in Sunday school and children’s worship. And when they bring a picture home or the Sunday school lesson we will ask them so what does that mean. Today I encourage you to show your memorial stones and as they ask you what it means.
Just don’t do like the lady whose husband died a woman’s husband dies and she has only $20,000 to her name. After everything is done at the funeral home and cemetery, she tells her closest friend that she has no money left.
The friend says, "How can that be? You told me you still had $20,000 left just a few days before your husband died. How could you be broke?"
The widow says, "Well, the funeral home cost me $5,000. And of course, I had to make the obligatory donation to the church, so that was another
$5,000. The rest went for the memorial stone."
The friend says, "$10,000 for the memorial stone? Wow, how big was it?"
Extending her left hand, the widow says, "Three carats."
Rather speak up and share with them the memorial stones in your life. How God brought you through something that was difficult and you thought impossible. Share with them the experiences that you have had when God has provided for you when you thought there was no way out.
Listen, I know that in this very room today we could share stories with each other as we remember those times when it felt as if we were the ones in the Jordan River drowning. Yet just when we thought we had taken our last breath we remember that the waters simply stopped and were placed in a heap and we were able to continue on.
Oh how I pray that Christianity will not become so commonplace in our lives that we forget what God has done. How he stopped the waters from coming upon us, how he stopped the wind from blowing us away. Everyday there should be memorial stones reminding us of God’s presence and how he has worked in our lives. Times in which we
---had no place to go yet doors were opened
---when you were ready to call it quits yet God intervened
---when I thought our marriage was over
---times when I thought that I would lose my job
The list could go on and on, but if we are honest we will see that in each circumstance God was right there beside us at our homes, in our cars, at our schools our offices or wherever we were God was there. Just when I thought tat the river was going to overtake me, my faith showed me the presence of God and I watched as the river was stopped and kept dry until me and my family was able to cross.
And friends today if you can remember that time when God changed your life then we need to take a memorial stone and use it to remember God’s presence for us in the past. You have been called to be a testimony. Along the path of life, God has changed you. He has turned your test into a testimony, and you are here today as a bible believing God fearing example of that and we should be willing to testify about it.
You ought to point to the stones. That place in time, that moment in your past, that spot in your life, that spark that got you going, that time you knew she was it…point to the stones.
You don’t have to tell me, I know how busy everyone is. I know that we all have so much going on, but we must be careful that we do not forget all the times that God has provided for us. God has provided for us in the past and he can provide for us today. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the Israelis to look at that Jordan River and as they took their sandals off prepared to walk in the middle of that flooded river. Yet God knew that they were going to be provided for. It was no problem at all for him to simply lift his finger and stop the water so they could walk across the river. And he wants and can do the same thing for us today. Let’s use these memorial stones and this Memorial Day weekend to be reminded of God’s provisions in our past.
You know that we have been building this memorial stone to remind us of God’s blessings in our lives. Maybe you have never made a stone. Maybe today is the day in which you are ready to build a memorial thanking God and remembering the way that he has provided for you in the past. Today when your children look at your memorial stone and they say what do these stones mean “what will you say” My prayer is that you will say here is my memorial stone let me tell you about a time in which God provided in my life and may it be like Joshua 4:24 as it will be an example so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.
