Memorial
Day began when General Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic,
officially proclaimed May 30, 1868 to be a day of Memorial for soldiers who had
fallen in the Civil War. Through the
years, in addition to a special day, we have added numerous monuments, walls,
and other types of Memorials that have been erected in Washington D.C. and
throughout the country in memory of those who have fallen in a terrible
conflict. These memorials serve to remind
us of a great price paid for our freedom.
However,
when it comes to the origin of memorials, I think I am right in saying that the
very first visible and continuing memorial ever given was given by God Himself
when he said to Noah in Genesis 9:12-15:
This is the sign of
the covenant which I make between you, and every living creature that is with
you, for perpetual generations: I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be
for the sign of the covenant between me and the earth … and I will remember my
covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh;
the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
For Noah
the rainbow was a memorial sign. In a
sense it spoke to him with a twofold message.
It was both a reminder of something terrible that had happened – the
flood and its total devastation – and it was a promise to Noah and all flesh
that life would continue in the future.
It was a symbol of hope. It
inaugurated a covenant that promised life.
Like the
rainbow, this table and these elements also present a twofold message. They are a memorial, a reminder, of the
terrible price that was paid by Jesus on the cross. In a sense, we and potentially, the whole
world died with him in the flood that engulfed him because he became sin on our
behalf and died on our behalf. This
simple service keeps that reality alive.
But it
is also a promise, a message of hope – the promise of forgiveness, of new life,
and of salvation and the beginning of a new and lasting covenant.
As a
rainbow in the sky speaks of both the terrible price paid for sin and at the
same time promises life, so our communion tells us of what Jesus did for us and
at the same time promises abundant life both here and hereafter.
Jesus
summarized it succinctly when he took the bread and said, “this is my body
given for you,” and then the cup, saying, “this is the new covenant in my blood
which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
