Message for Remembrance Day 2011 – Calvary Baptist Church
1 Samuel 7:7-12 – Here I Raise my Ebenezer
It is a pleasure for me to share with you today, on this very special day, a word from the Bible. My family and I honour this day in particular because my grandfather served in the Canadian Air Force, stationed in Iceland in the Second World War. With all that is going on in the world today, the political and social unrest, seen even in our own country, it is good to remember what we have. Yes, there are things wrong in society, with the government, with the system, yes. However, if we look around the world, at countries where your faith or my faith might be illegal, where speaking out is grounds for offence, where a citizen is not allowed to vote, where standing up against the rulers is grounds for execution… Canada is such a great country to live in. And on days like today, we take time to remember why.
I’d like to share with you a thought or two. I want to share with you a story from the OT, a battle in fact, from a war between the Israelites and the Philistines. I don’t know if it’s callous or appropriate to read about an ancient war, here on Remembrance Day, but certainly no disrespect is intended.
In today’s scripture we find the Israelites in a long, drawn-out war. The people were growing tired and losing heart. But the nation had a godly leader in Samuel. He was not the king, but what we call a judge: a leader appointed by God to help the people remain faithful to the Lord. Samuel called on the people to revive their affections for the one true God, to get rid of their back-up plans, their idols, those things they would pray to when other things didn’t seem to work. Samuel told them to rid themselves of all their Plan B’s.
He also instructed them to come back to God, to repent, to admit fault and blame. The people, led by Samuel, gathered at a place called Mizpah, where they sacrificed animals to the Lord, as a symbol of restoring their faith in Him. Meanwhile, the Philistines heard that the people were gathering at Mizpah, and they thought that a sneak attack would be a great idea. But God had other plans. The Lord fought for His people that day, and threw the enemy into confusion. The Israelite army thoroughly routed the enemy Philistines that day.
And Samuel wanted the people to remember that day, the day that God fought for His people. So Samuel took a stone, a single stone, and set it up where the army had won the battle. He called it Ebenezer, which means “stone of help”. It was meant to help people remember what God had done for them. Samuel himself said, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” The King James puts it this way: “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” Hitherto.
The word Ebenezer has come to mean something else. We usually attach it to the word Scrooge, which of course means someone miserly and cheap, mean and bitter. But before Charles Dickens forever changed what we think about the word Ebenezer, someone else wrote about this. His name was Robert Robinson, and he wrote the lyrics to the song that we know by the first line:
Come thou Fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace.
Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.
The 2nd verse says this:
Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.
The word “hither” really means “so far”. The songwriter and Samuel both looked back at where they had been, where they had come from, and realized that the Lord had been with them. They got to the place where they were, not by themselves, but because the Lord had brought them this far.
I remember going blueberrying when I lived in northern Maine. There was a place called Horse Mountain in Baxter State Park, some 45 minutes from our house, and I went every summer blueberrying up that hill. We’d climb and struggle and sweat, working our way up that hill, for the reward of those little blue bundles of sweetness. And we’d get to the top, look around, and see the sights. The hills, the lakes, the winding road from the civilization in the distance. And the view of what God had created was wonderful. And as I looked down towards the car in the distance, I’d see how far I’d climbed.
Ebenezer was like the top of Horse Mountain for me. Stopping, looking around, seeing God’s handiwork, and being thankful for what He had done. Remembering where they had been, and what had happened, and how things were now.
If the truth were told, we’d all admit to being forgetful at times. Not about a grocery list or taking out the garbage, but about real consequential things. Psalm 103 tells us not to forget all His benefits, all the things that God has done for us. He’s given us life and breath, health and strength. He’s provided for us forgiveness and clean consciences. He’s promised us eternal life and hope in the midst of death. Our lives have purpose and meaning because of what the Lord has done. The Bible says that everything – from good to bad, from fair to middling – works together for the good of those who love God.
Do you see what that means? That even the worst things that could possibly happen to a person can be used for the good of people who have a relationship with God. Even the worst tragedies don’t have to go to waste, because we serve such a powerful and loving God who can bring something beautiful out of them.
Ah, but we forget so easily. We lose sight, we lose hope, we lose faith. We go about our daily existences, forgetting all the wonderful things God has done, forgetting all the great stuff ahead. No wonder that over and over in the Bible, someone builds an altar of stones, from Noah to Moses, from Jacob to Elijah, for the purpose of remembering what God had done for them. One stone upon another, laid carefully to withstand the elements, to serve as a reminder for generations that God had been kind to them.
We need more Ebenezers. Life gets rough sometimes, and we forget where we have come from. We need things like fridge magnets with Bible verses, to remind us when we get our orange juice that the Lord is our shepherd. We need bookmarks in our favourite reading materials, to remind us that God will never leave us or forsake us. We need the company of other people who love the Lord, to remind us that we are not alone on our journey.
This explains why we have so many things like gravestones or fasten seat belt lights in our vehicles… to help us remember. Even a wedding ring is a symbol and a reminder of love and commitment, and Samuel’s Ebenezer served the same purpose. Years later, people would look at that stone and be reminded of God’s love for them, and commitment to them, and they would be thankful.
Thank you, Lord, for your watching over us. Thank you, Lord, for your help and your care. Thank you, Lord, that you did not abandon us to our enemies. That’s why we have the cross – to remind us of who we were, who we are, where we’re going, who made it happen, and how He did it. The cross is more than a nice piece of jewelry; it is an Ebenezer, reminding us of what Someone did for us, to set us free.
In the same way, the cenotaph is a reminder. After all, what do we say? Lest we forget. We never want to forget what someone has done for us. It’s easy enough, I think. Unless the hurt is still fresh or we are into genealogy, do we remember during the rest of the year the events of today? In January, do we remember Vimy Ridge? In April, do we remember Passchendaele? It’s possible that we remember Juno Beach around June 6, but do we remember the Netherlands or the Rhine? See? This is why we need a cenotaph: to remember what our troops fought for so many years ago.
And our troops are still fighting, serving as peacekeepers around the world, trying to help people survive totalitarian regimes and unjust rulers. The cenotaph reminds us that even today, Canadians lose their lives to fight for the freedom and well-being of others. Even though the stone etched with markings contains the names of those long since gone, the list of Canadians who have given their lives for their country and for others, even to the point of making the ultimate sacrifice… that list continues to grow.
It is good to remember. Lest we forget the sacrifices made by those we did not know for those they did not know. Lest we forget how young men and women laid down their lives for the lives of others. Lest we forget those who made careers of serving in the Canadian forces, giving many years for the sake of peace and safety. Lest we forget those who came and went on this earth with no family, no one to write their names in a family tree, no one to preserve their legacy for years to come. As we gather at the cenotaph this morning, our Ebenezer, our reminder made of stone that we have receive help, let us also remember the cross, another Ebenezer, a reminder that we have received help and life itself from our God.
