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by GLENN PEASE
02/07/18
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Based on Ex. 12:1-16

      One of the most important battles in the history of our nation was won by 262 Minnesotans. It is generally agreed by historians that he battle of Gettysburg was the turning point that led the North to win the tragic Civil War. That battle was going badly for the North, and at one point the Confederates had them in retreat and they were in hot pursuit. They were only a half mile from a position where they could cut the union line in half and have a decisive victory.

      The only troops who might prevent this were the First Minnesota Volunteer Regiment. These 262 officers and men were camped right in the path of the attacking Confederates.   They were out numbered many times over, but when Colonel Covill gave the order to charge they did so with such force that they stunned the larger army. They were cut to ribbons, however, and most of them died. Only 47 survived, but they held the line until reinforcements arrived and made it possible for the North to finally win that battle that led to the winning of the war. General Hancock, who was there, said of this sacrifice on July 2, 1863, "There is no more gallant deed recorded in history.

     I discovered this bit of history in the book 101 Best Stories Of Minnesota by Merile Potter. It made me realize that we cannot remember what we have never known. Just as you cannot go back to where you have never been, so you cannot remember what you never forgot because you never knew it. I never liked history as a student, and it is a shame that so many students feel this way. It should be one of the most exciting classes in school.

      God made history a required course for His people, and then gave memorials to make sure they never forgot their history, and the grace of God that made them a people. Everything they were, and all they had, was because of events of the past. The deliverance out of Egypt was the beginning of Israel as an independent people. They owed their existence and survival to the Passover when God judged Egypt and set them free. God felt is was so important that every generation of Israel remember this event that He established a memorial feast of the Passover, and it was so important that the people observed this memorial in every detail that God gave severe laws to excommunicate anyone who treated them lightly.

      In Esther 6:1 we read where the king could not sleep and ordered the record book of his reign to be read to him. In so doing he was reminded of the heroic deed of Mordecai the Jew, and because of that memory being restored by that record the entire race of Jews was saved from the conspiracy of Haman to destroy them. They were saved by the power of memory. The Bible makes it clear that God loves memorial events, for they force our minds to reflect and remember, and this keeps the past alive in the present so that the future can be what He wills.

      That is why Jesus left the church only one event to remember Him by. It is a memorial service that we call communion, and by which we remember that His death on the cross is the foundation for all we have as Christians in time and eternity. Do this in remembrance of me Jesus said because He knew the power of memory and the importance of having roots in the past.

      Memorial Day has never had a great deal of meaning for me. I have had many members of my family in the armed services, and an uncle who won the purple heart, and who was a prisoner of war. I've never lost a loved one in war, and so I have never been a part of a family who went to the cemetery to place flowers or a wreath on the grave of one who died for our country. It use to be called Decoration Day for that is what families did for loved ones who died in service.

       Even those who had such graves to visit began to lose interest. Theodore Ferris, who was pastor of the historic Trinity Church of Boston, had a long family tradition of doing this. His grandmother said, "When I am gone nobody will continue this," but his mother did all her life. But when his mother died, he reasoned that his loved ones were not in the cemetery and so he let the tradition die. My point is, Memorial Day for the majority of people is more a day for making new memories of a great weekend of fun and travel rather than a day of remembering the past and the sacrifices that make such enjoyable freedom possible.

      I do not feel it is of any value to try and provoke a guilt trip in anyone's mind, but I do feel it is of value to try and get us all to give thought to the value of memorials and to the power of memory. Our nation has fought 8 majors wars, and over a million men and women have died in them. All that we enjoy as Americans has had a high price tag. Somebody else had to sacrifice for the benefits we enjoy. The least we can do is to acknowledge their sacrifice.

      Memories of bad things of the past are an aid to preventing bad things in the present and future. War is terrible and we need to be reminded of its terror and cost lest we forget and let it happen again. In Israel there is a memorial called the Memorial of Witness and Warning in Jerusalem. It is in memory of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. There are mementos and even pictures of children being herded into the gas chambers. What a horrible memory to keep alive, but the Jews work hard at it. On this memorial are the words of an 18th century Jewish scholar which read, "Forgetfulness prolongs the exile: Remembrance is the secret of redemption."

      It is the remembrance of just how awful prejudice and hatred can be that will save the world from another Holocaust. It is forgetfulness that leads to history repeating itself in its most despicable events. Memory is the key tool in the prevention of the terrible. Memory is what helps all of us become efficient in the prevention of suffering. Bad experiences of the past, when they are remembered, cause you avoid those same experiences.

      There is a positive side to Memorial Day. The day had its beginning in the loving compassion of Civil War mothers in Columbus, Mississippi. In the spring of 1863, 2 years before the war ended, these mothers went out to lay flowers on the graves of their Confederate dead. There were Union soldiers buried there also. These mothers realized that the mothers of the North could not come to the graves of their sons, and so in love that rose above the hatred of the war they put flowers on the graves of the Union soldiers as well. This practice spread all over the South and then into the North, and that's how Memorial Day began. It was a day to remember an honor all who died in war. In our day it has come to be a day to remember all who have died in any way, for life itself is a form of warfare, and so all who die do so in combat of some sort.

      Lynette Wert was a student traveling in Italy when she got a letter from her mother urging her to visit the American cemetery in Florence where American service men were buried. A friend's son was buried there and the mother never saw the sight, nor had any of the family. It all seemed so meaningless to her, and it was out of the way, but she finally found it. There were rows of crosses and finally she found the one with the name Terry Stewart. She was shocked to discover that he had been born the same day as her father. It could have been her father buried there, and she would have been deprived of the chance to even exist.

      She gained a deeper appreciation for the sacrifice of American service men, for she realized that her very existence depended on someone else paying the price so that others could be free to live, love, and make a future possible.   She said, "My father could have died in warfare, but he did not, for others died in his place. My grandfather could have died in war, but he did not, for others died in his place. My great grandfather and his father, and on and on you could go. All of them were spared because others died in the wars that might have killed them. Everyone of us is here today because we have a family tree where our limb was never cut off because someone else died in the place of the one who kept our branch growing. Everyone one of us owes our very existence to those who died."

      Both our temporal life and eternal life are ours because of the death of others for us. Only the death of Jesus makes our eternal life possible, but many have died that we might enjoy the present physical life. And without physical life we could never have eternal life. This leads to some startling conclusions that make Memorial Day far more significant than any of us could imagine. If began with those mothers who rose above prejudice and honored the enemy soldiers who died fighting their own sons. This unity of all humanity, and oneness even with our enemies, is an inevitable part of Memorial Day, for the dead who died for our freedom and very existence were often people very opposite from us.

      Catholics died for Protestants and vice versa. Blacks died for whites and vice versa. Atheists died for Christians and vice versa. In war every traditional enemy died for the other. Arabs died for Jews, and Jews died for Nazi lovers. Every one alive is so because of the sacrifice of their enemies as well as their friends. Remembrance of this reality could go along way in preventing the prejudice and other human follies that lead to the evil of war. For the Christian it is also another reason for the promotion of loving those who may not love you. If there are people you do not like, it is likely that some of their very group died in a war in order that you might enjoy the life you do. The memory of this can have the power to heal your prejudice, and produce in you the compassion of Christ for those very people.

      The Civil War was the worst war ever for Americans, but the memory of how it ended is one of the best memories we can have. General Lee on April 9, 1865 stood before General Grant to surrender according to Grant's terms. The terms were generous, for Lee's army was free to go home, stipulating only that they leave their arms. Lee responded, "This will have a very happy effect on my army." He then explained that the Confederate cavalrymen and artillery men owned their own horses and inquired if they might keep them. Grant recognized they would need their horse or mule to work their little farm and so he granted this request plus a supply of rations. This act of love toward the enemy was a major step in uniting a severely divided people.

     War is hell, but the memory of the heroic and loving acts of many who died and who fought wars can possess the power to make the present heavenly. The more I study war the more I hate it, but, on the other hand, the more I love people, and the more I have compassion for all people. Foolish people learn only from their own experience, but wise people learn from the experience of others. We do not have to make the same mistakes of previous generations that led to war. We can, by the power of memory, honor the heroic dead most of all by preventing the follies that killed them.

      Christians should be leaders in learning from history, because the Bible was given to us by God that we might be just such learners. Paul stressed this in Rom. 15:4, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." Over and over again the Old Testament reveals the power of God's memory. Salvation is based on God's remembering His people and His promises. God remembered Noah, and God remembered Abraham, and God remembered Rachel, and God remembered His covenant with His people. If God never had a Memorial Day in which He looked back and remembered His promises the people of God would have ceased to exist. They have been saved many times because of God's memory.

      Ex. 6:5 is representative of numerous examples. It says, "And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant." That Memorial Day of God became a perpetual Memorial Day for Israel because it became the day of their deliverance out of Egypt. God's people are to perpetually remember that God remembered them.

     Memorial Day is to remember those who have died, but keep in mind that it is also a day to remember the providence of God that used the death of others as a basis for the life we now live. It is a Thanksgiving Day for those who see that they only live because God remembered and refused to let evil win and destroy the good. In every crisis of history where evil threatens to conquer the world, God and His providence comes to the rescue. Many good people die, but God's people live on, and His kingdom presses on giving all people the hope of eternal life in Jesus Christ.

      Remember the Alamo, and remember Pearl Harbor, and remember Iwo Jima, and remember all the heroic battles and sacrifices, but above all, remember the God who remembers that we are but dust, and yet provided a way for all men to have hope of an eternal destiny where sin and all of its consequences will be remembered no more.

      An event happens only once in history, but in memory it can happen over and over. The memory can give the event power beyond what the event itself had. We can reflect on the sacrifices of the past and be changed because of them. The memory has the power to give the past event and impact in the present. It is my means of the memory that the past still lives.

       One of the most important things we need to remember is that the millions who died for our freedom would have accomplished nothing had it not been for the providence of God. The more you study the wars of our history, the more you discover that they were not won by man alone. No where is this more evident than in the Revolutionary War.

      The British sent an invading force of 55 thousand men to defeat the American army. On one August morning in Brooklyn 15 thousand British and 5 thousand Hessian troops who were well trained faced Washington's 8 thousand men half of whom were untrained. Washington watched as one by one as his generals were crushed. It was only a matter of hours and the Revolution would be over, and he and his remaining troops would be dead or in chains. But for some unknown reason the British general Howe decided to wait until the next day. It was that mistake that changed the history of our nation.

      The next day the weather was not fit for a war. It was such a dark and dreary day. It gave Washington an idea for the greatest escape plan in American history. He decided to risk taking his entire army off Brooklyn in small boats right under the noses of the British. All night long skilled oarsman noiselessly rode the troops a mile across the water. It was mission impossible, and yet it was working. As dawn came the sky was clearing, and they were far from finished. It was with great anxiety that they watched the rising sun that would expose them and leave the remaining troops at the mercy of the British. But to their amazement fog began to rise off the river, and it kept them covered until the last boat with Washington in it left. Then it lifted and the British ran to the shore firing, but they were out of range.

      Eight thousand men were saved from certain death or imprisonment, and the American army was spared to fight another day, and eventually drive the British out of our land. It was not cost free, for 15 thousand Americans died that battle, but by the providence of God their deaths were not in vain, for God spared the rest of the army to go on to victory. The point is, when we remember those who have died it borders on idolatry unless we also remember the hand of God in giving us the victories that preserve our liberties. No number of deaths could have given us what we have without the hand of God in our history. Therefore, let us look back and remember our heroic dead with a spirit of thankfulness to God, and the kind of humility we see in George Washington which he made clear in this prayer he wrote:

"O God, who art rich in mercy and plenteous in redemption, mark not, I beseech Thee, what I have done amiss; remember that I am but dust, and remit my transgressions, negligences and ignorances, and cover them all with the absolute obedience of Thy dear Son, that those sacrifices which I have offered may be accepted by Thee, in and for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ offered upon the cross for me."

       Washington recognized that the greatest power of memory is experienced when we look beyond all that we have done, or all that the heroes of history have done, to what God has done for us in Jesus. There is no greater memory than to remember that it is His death that gives value to all other deaths on our behalf. Every Memorial Day is to be a day of thanksgiving to our Lord who brings life out of death. Thank God for the power of memory, for by it we can see abundant reasons to thank God for the past sacrifices that have given us a great land for time, and a greater yet for eternity.

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