We are a species created to remember. Nearly every country on Earth has memorials erected to honor fallen soldiers, past leaders/heroes and historical events. I love to visit Washington, DC- I city built of memorials. Perhaps the most moving is the Vietnam Memorial, where the name of every fallen soldier is listed. I haven’t yet seen the WWII Memorial, which saw so many soldiers lost that it would be near-impossible to list every name. Instead are stars, representing 100 fallen soldiers. There are 4048 such stars.
Today you are likely to enjoy a barbecue, take in a movie, or maybe visit the beach or a baseball game. There might be parades or memorial events at the local cemetery. But the real celebration of Memorial Day is enjoying the freedoms earned and protected by our fallen soldiers and those presently in the fight. In such a way, we are living memorials as our lives honor those who fought and fight for all that we have.
The Bible is likewise filled with memorials. Stones erected, places renamed, and altars built to remember what God had done for His Chosen People. Just a quick sampling: the naming of Bethel, where Jacob dreamt of the Stairway to Heaven; The twelve stones marking where the Nation of Israel crossed the Jordan; the place of Ebenezer, where the Israelites saw victory over the Philistines. After Christ, we have the memorial of the bread and wine, but with the curtain of the Temple torn in two and the tomb found vacant, there was not a physical memorial erected to memorialize what Jesus had done.
But there doesn’t need to be. We are that memorial. Paul writes, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3, emphasis added)
Just as we celebrate Memorial Day today by enjoying the freedoms won for us, we celebrate the memorial of Jesus Christ every day by allowing our lives to be a testimony of the sacrifice offered on our behalf. Is you life a memorial to the sacrifice of Jesus?