Sermon – A Memory Test
Acts 10:1-4; Joshua 3:7-4:7
5/31/26
Some things are worth remembering. We all have those moments in our lives: times of great celebration like graduation, births, marriages, and significant successes; times of surprise like perhaps a surprise party or an unexpected visit by a dear person; times of anticipation like a significant trip or event. Some things are just incredibly important and should be close to mind like medical needs. Special information, both professional and personal, is also probably good to remember. Sometimes I worry I have forgotten how to preach.
There are actually lots of things that should be remembered. We are a people that deeply needs memory. The difference between life and death eons ago was remembering which things were safe to eat or how to hunt or the best places to find safe water or where your tribe was camping. Memory makes it possible to live with others in relationship, to learn and grow through education, and to appreciate any of the life that has gone before.
We very much need memory, but only special memory has a memorial.
Occasionally, something happens that is so significant that it must be remembered, not only by those who experienced the time but also by those who come in the future. That demands a memorial.
We have all most likely seen memorials before. A great place for them is our nation’s capital, but there are excellent memorials all across the land. We even have some close to home. There are at least a couple of memorials for the winningest coach in Longwood sports history, our own Barbara Smith. Significant history happened here in the Farmville area, and there are different memorials marking those moments. We should never forget our history, how we got to where we are today and the lessons of yesterday.
More than 3000 years ago, the people of God were camped out on the near side of the River Jordan, but they needed to get to the far side. That was the side that was dedicated for their new home, the land that God gave to Abraham, the land of Canaan. They had been wondering for 40 years through the wilderness, long enough for nearly everyone who had been a slave in Egypt to have died. This was a new people. They had a different memory and experience of God’s deliverance. Their feet did not cross the Red Sea on dry ground.
As they were standing on the eastern bank of a flooding Jordan, God opened a door. If they would step in, they would see a miracle.
You really have to give credit to the men carrying the Ark of the Covenant. They had to lead the way, but God was very clear that the water would not part until their feet touched the water. They had to step in before they would have a path. Amazingly, there is no grumbling or concern. No one expresses doubt but that could just be the editing. We do not need to see doubt here and now in the story. We need to see help, a path, and faith.
Compared to our other water-parting-into-a-path event, this one seems like small potatoes. Many do not even realize that this crossing took place. Many tons of moving water were halted for God’s people to cross the flooding Jordan. Again, the Ark bearers do deserve credit. They had to wait in the bottom of the river until everyone crossed. Once that was done, however, and they were preparing to exit, God gave them one more task: one person from each of the 12 tribes of Israel should take a rock from the bottom of the river and bring it out. These would have been big rocks, as big as they could carry, and on the west side of the bank they built a memorial.
There were no plaques. It depended on one generation telling another what had taken place. The rocks there would have looked different from land rocks – smoothed by many years of flowing water. And being stacked would have caused folk to wonder, especially young people. Why is this mound of rocks here?
Memorials in the Bible are different than our memorials today. Today’s memorials are meant to teach, but they are also meant to connect us to important things or people of the past worth remembering. Westview cemetery and every cemetery is full of personal memorials to help us recall those who have been important to us in years past. You may have names of family members there that you never know, but you have evidence that they existed. You can connect to your past or someone else’s past with those kinds of memorials.
Today’s memorial in Joshua does even more. This is a memorial about God. When people remember what God has done, that experience, that faith, and that divine presence is there. The memorial brings the past into the present. This is not looking through a photo album or visiting a grave, it is being a part of that experience. I have never visited the holocaust museum in Richmond, but I have seen the one in Jerusalem. In some respects, the one in Richmond is better for this point. They make you personally part of the story. They take that tremendous tragedy and connect it to you personally as they tell the story. It is immersive history, and that is the point. It brings the past to life today in a way that you feel it, and you then will never forget it.
That is what memorials in the Bible are meant to do. It is not enough to just remember what God has done. We must know that that history is still being lived out today. History is not dead but unfolds each generation. This is especially important as people in the Spirit of God. Otherwise, it is just words and wishful thinking.
How do we know that anything in the past actually happened? You can see, feel, hear, and maybe even taste and smell history. Every Farmvillian should visit the Moton museum. Every Virginian should visit Jamestown. Every American should see the memorials in DC. It is not practical for every follower of Jesus to visit Israel, but standing on ancient ground in an ancient land changes your perspective and brings history to life. Our nation is too young to have roots that deep. I have seen Roman roads still in use today that have ruts ground into them from chariot wheels.
But God’s memorials are meant to do more than make us remember. What does it mean for a child to stop in front of a pillar of river rocks and ask why they are there? If God is behind that memorial, then it is a comfort. If that person’s faith was faltering, then it is an encouragement. If that person is ready to grow and build on their love for God, then it ignites their faith. If that child lost their faith in doubt and fear, then it revives it.
I doubt that I will ever step across a parted river, but I can know that our ancestors did. I might never touch the hand that fed thousands with a few fish and loaves, but I can stand where that happened looking over the Sea of Galilee. I might never be at the tomb on that first Easter morning, but I can see an empty tomb near a hill that looks like a skull. God is the one who saves. God is the one who provides. God is the one who cares. God is the one who is still with us.
When we dare to hold memorials in our hearts and minds, our spirits are blessed. They are not all happy. Certainly, history is not all happy, but events worthy of memorials are important to remember. They are part of who we are, and they are meant to guide us going forward. They can challenge us to be better.
What is really interesting about this word memorial, however, is that apparently we can become memorials, also. Cornelius, our Roman centurion hero of Acts 10 was worshipping God in a way that his worship became a memorial. God remembered Cornelius. That time and place and occasion became a gift to God so that God took notice. No, Cornelius did not build a monument, but what he was doing signaled to God something worth holding in mind – something worth remembering.
It is very reasonable to suggest that when we are devoting ourselves in faithful worship, we are creating something special and holy that is greater than ourselves. And it is worth God remembering it. God does not forget us.
Something interesting has happened in recent time in America and maybe beyond. There was a study some years ago that identified that 30% of the American population would eventually develop dementia on some level. Recently, however, that percentage was adjusted to just 10%, and no one knows why that percentage has changed. This is remarkable. Many of us are afraid of losing memory some day, and memory is so important, and all of us will one day deal with memory issues of some kind if we live to be old enough, but this might suggest that maybe, just maybe, memory itself just might be coming greater. As if God might just be saying that it is all the more important to remember one another.
Today, friends, we are doing something beautiful. We are offering to God our faithful and sincere worship, doing our best to remember God in God’s faithfulness and making a memorial of worship to God that we might remember one another always. To God be the glory. Amen.