Jeff Adams

With the price of gasoline hovering around $4 a gallon, you might want to take a different type of trip this Memorial Day weekend. How about a trip down Memory Lane? I’ve got some thoughts I’d like to share about the importance of remembering.

Memorial Day, a holiday unique to the United States, was also called Decoration Day and designed as a time to remember the fallen soldiers from the US Civil War by decorating their graves and keeping their memories alive. By the end of the First World War, Memorial Day had evolved into a time to honor the fallen dead from all wars. Over the following decades the holiday came to include decorating the graves of any family members. I remember going to the local cemetery with my parents and fraternal grandmother to decorate family graves with flowers and clean away a year’s worth of weeds. I also remember playing taps on my trumpet for a civic ceremony at the cemetery on Memorial Day.

Today, Memorial Day has lost much of it original meaning, becoming mostly a three day weekend, a time for cookouts and family gatherings and the unofficial start of summer. I’m not complaining. Things change and nothing stays the same forever except God and his truth. There is, however, amazing power in remembering. Tribal societies often have strong oral traditions and even officially designated storytellers or historians whose duty it is to pass tradition down from generation to generation.

For the past couple of days I have been tracking this theme of remembering as I have been reading through the Psalms. One of the important characteristics of the Psalms of Asaph is this very concept of the importance of remembering God’s great deeds. Here is an example from the psalmist Asaph.

We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God. Psalm 78:4-8

Right before the psalms of Asaph is Psalm 71. We don’t really know who wrote this psalm, although it is supposed that David is the author. Whoever it was, we see the same theme of passing on testimony of God’s works from generation to generation.

Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come. Psalm 71:18

The reason this is so important appears in the opening verse of Asaph’s Psalm 75.

Unto thee, O God, do we give thanks, unto thee do we give thanks: for that thy name is near thy wondrous works declare. Psalm 75:1

The idea here is that declaring his wondrous works is how we draw near to his name. His name symbolizes the core of who he is. Reflecting on God’s great deeds in the past is what gives us confidence that he will do the same today and tomorrow.

This morning I saw yet another part of this thread of thought as Asaph recounts a time of great darkness in his life, a time so painful and hopeless he says his soul refused to be comforted.

In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted. Psalm 77:2

We have no idea what specific situation Asaph refers to or why he was in such anguish. He leaves no doubt, though, about how he dealt with this horrible reality he faced. The answer was to do exactly what he had counseled others. He went back to reflect on all God had done in history. He remembered God’s wonderful works, meditated on them and committed to tell about them to others.

And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High. I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings. Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God? Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people. Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah. Psalm 77:10-15

So, even if you are sticking around home for Memorial Day, remember your responsibility to remember the past, meditate on it and pass it on to others. Here are some suggestions:

• Start Memorial Day by using a bit of your holiday time early in the morning to remember what God has done in history and in your own life. Use your Bible reading that morning as a course. What do you see in the Bible to remind you of God’s great deeds? What are the five greatest acts of God in your personal life or the life of your family?
• If possible visit some family grave sites and pause to recall those you knew and what you learned from them, either positive or negative.
• If gathering with other family members, you might remember together some of those no longer with you and share some memories.
• If you are in Kansas City follow some of the markers that tell the story of the Battle of Westport during the Civil War and reflect on how life must have been for those who lived through this painful period of American history. What can you learn to apply today? How have others paid the price for you and I to have the freedom to gripe about $4 gasoline? Here’s a suggested tour here.
• Again, if you live in this area visit the fabulous National World War One Museum at the Liberty Memorial and learn about this war that many have all but forgotten. See what you can learn to remember and pass on to others.
• Visit the amazing Steamboat Arabia Museum and mediate on how life must have been for the pioneers who laid the social foundations of the city where you now live.

Have a great holiday weekend and make some memories! If you are in Kansas City, come and join us for either our 9:00am or 10:45 worship service as we remember all God has done here at KCBT since 1943. You’ll hear from all three senior pastors since 1943. After the service, join us for a great afternoon together with a host of activities in Zimmerman Park across the street from the church.