All too often a great natural disaster occurs, like hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake, or the Japan earthquake and tsunami. For a time our national media keeps it before us. Right now our attention is focused on Joplin. But, as time goes by, the media turn to other events. Not everyone forgets, but with many of us it is true: out of sight, out of mind.
If you come to church from West 11th as I do, you turn at the corner on Bertleson where a drunken driver killed several people a few years ago. It was a terrible tragedy and for a long time flower memorials were placed there to remind us. Some are still there but not as many and not as obvious. Usually I don't see them and consequently I don't remember. Out of sight, out of mind.
In 1984 Frances and I had the privilege of visiting St Michael's Cathedral in Coventry, England. The Cathedral is a magnificent, modern building. On the front is a sculpture of St Michael defeating the devil. As you walk into the building from either side you cannot help but see the ruins of the original building that was destroyed by bombs in World War Two. They have left the shell of the original building for all to see. Also, once inside the Cathedral a glass wall with inscribed figures of historical Christians allows you to see the ruins.
As you stand in the ruins your eye is drawn to the charred, ugly cross behind the altar. Someone picked through the rubble of the bombed out ruins and used some blackened pieces of wood to form a crude cross. The bombing occurred on Nov 14, 1943. Only six months later, on Christmas day, the BBC invited Provost Howard to lead a Christmas broadcast from the ruins of the Cathedral. In his message he said, "With Christ born in our hearts today, we are trying, hard as it may be, to banish all thoughts of revenge ... We are going to try to make a kinder, simpler, a more Christ-child-like sort of world in the days beyond this strife."
After the war, as an act of reconciliation the German people collected offerings and paid for the windows in the new Cathedral. Also, a reconciliation statue, titled "Forgiveness", was placed within the ruins. All of these, the new Cathedral, the ruins, the statue and the cross, are visible reminders of the reconciliation found in Christ. We need such visual reminders because it is certainly true -- if it's out of sight, its out of mind.
And so it is with these simple elements, a table that says, "do this in remembrance of me," a piece of bread, a cup of grape juice, the words, "this is my body," and "this is my blood of the covenant." All of this, so simple and yet so important, keep alive and fresh our memory of the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf.
