These Necessary Reminders                                              5/1/49

 

Scripture:  Joshua 4: 1-3; 19-24.

 

It hardly seems possible that the children of Israel, or any of their descendants, could ever forget this deliverance from slavery.  How could they fail to remember their passing through the river Jordan “as by dry land?”  But they did!  How could these children of bondage, most of them born in compulsory servitude, ever forget the manner in which they were freed from the shackles of their slavery?  But they did forget!  How can enlightened people who have lived in the Christian era and enjoyed a civilization based on Christian principle, ever forget Jesus Christ, his coming, his sacrifice, his redemption?  But they do!

 

Memorials, monuments, shrines, anniversaries, celebrations -- all of these have their warrant in thee melancholy truth that we are a forgetful people.  Some of these memorials may be called “necessary reminders.”

 

Those of us who have visited the capital city of our nation, Washington, DC, know of splendid reminders there of two men whom the Lord raised up to match the hour, the need and the event,  One of those reminders is a tall, plain shaft rising 555 feet above the ground.  It is sacred to the memory of him who was “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”  The other is a plain, marble temple, magnificent in its simplicity, wherein a brooding figure sits at ease in a great chair.  It is a memorial to the man who preserved the union “with firmness in the right as God gave him to see the right” and yet “with malice toward none, with charity for all.”  Someone has said that “His is the gentlest memory of our world.”

 

There is in the capital city a third reminder in the recumbent statue of Robert E. Lee, a splendid memorial to a life that was fully as great in defeat as in any conflict.

 

National Family Week is a reminder of the importance to our way of life of the integrated, balanced, Christian family.

 

Today is designated in many places as College Sunday, a reminder of the importance of education - the proper balance of teaching and learning on the college level, the importance of a Christian viewpoint in the learning process, the value of the church-related college in the field of higher education.  The attention of Congregational people in this part of our state is called particularly to Northland College at Ashland, where young people of ability and promise can help themselves through a college course at tuition rates made possible only by the gifts to the college of those who know and care.

 

Certain splendid reminders have been given us by God, reminders that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them who seek Him.  (1)  One of them is the weekly day of rest and worship, the ancient Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday.

 

It is doubtful if Judaism could have survived without the institution and celebration of the Sabbath.  The fourth commandment of the decalogue has been tremendously important.  In 586 BC Jerusalem fell, the Hebrew temple was destroyed, and the people were taken captives to Babylon.  The days of their captivity were very dark indeed for them.  The candle of the Jewish people might very well have been extinguished.  But the prophet Ezekiel went with the Jewish people, and Ezekiel made observance of the Sabbath of primary importance.  Once a week those captives stood up to be counted.  It was their holy day, and they kept it in solemn celebration with prayer and praise.  The unholy practices of the Babylonians surrounded them.  Their own manner of living could have been corrupted out of existence.  They could have been absorbed into a new, different, and less righteous culture.  But no matter what the surroundings, no matter how their captors jeered at or taunted them, the Jews kept the Sabbath day, and the Sabbath day kept them.

 

The best days of our own nation are those when we keep the Christian Lord’s Day in reverent and becoming manner.  Most of us can recognize a serenity and peace which has fallen over our community when each Lord’s Day dawns.  And we remember it in the communities of our childhood.

 

It would be a sad mistake to think we had outgrown this day, or could do so.  It is a splendid and necessary reminder that God is, and that He is the rewarder of them who seek Him.  Even those who have drifted away from institutional religion would not wish to live in a land, or a community, where there were no day of rest, relaxation and worship to quicken the spiritual nature.  If this should go out of our lives, something fine and noble would perish from the earth.

 

The early Christians replaced the Jewish Sabbath, which was the seventh day of the week, with the Christians’ First Day of the Week which stands in remembrance of the empty tomb and the living Christ.  Our emphasis on the resurrection at Easter time is reaffirmed on every Lord’s Day.  It is well to remember “He is risen!” every Sunday.

 

When John, the beloved disciple, was exiled to the Isle of Patmos, he remembered this day of days and wrote down for millions who would come after him that he was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.”  [Revelation 1: 10].  It is a fine phrase.  John must have meant that he was sensitive to spiritual impulses, his thoughts ennobled, passions disciplined and subdued, vision enlarged, heart warmed and energized in the  spirit of the Lord.  The Lord’s day can do the same for every worshipping soul.

 

Once a week, God gives us this splendid reminder of his unspeakably precious Gift to the world.  To be “in the spirit” on the Lord’s Day should put us in such trim that all the other days of the week will be used wisely, helpfully, in service to God and man.  The Lord’s Day, first in each week, is a red letter day on the calendar of the disciples of Christ.

 

(2)  Another splendid, and necessary, reminder that God is, and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him is the place of worship -- the synagogue of the Jews and the church of our Christian faith.  The synagogue came into existence when the Sabbath was reinstated during the Babylonian captivity.  The synagogue was a little replica of the temple that had stood in Jerusalem, dear to the heart of every devout Jew.  The church is the fellowship and meeting place of the followers of Christ, the house of worship for his disciples.  These great reminders go more closely together than we think: the Synagogue and the Sabbath; the church of Christ and the Lord’s day.  The church is a standing monument, a constant reminder of God, of Christ, of the life of the Spirit of prayer as a living experience of immortality.

 

When I say “the church” in this sense,  I speak not only of this church but of all churches of the faith, big and little, rural and urban, rich and poor, in this and in every other land.  They are great reminders of God -- that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that seek Him.

 

Some folk ask anxiously why don’t more people go to church?  A more searching question is this: Why do so many people go to church; more in our nation now than ever before in its history?  There are many other places to go -- places of entertainment and relaxation, places of excitement and interest.  And it isn’t always easy to leave the comfort of home to go through rain or snow to the house of worship.  Yet more people came through disagreeable, unseasonable snow two weeks ago than have come out on Easter Sunday in many a year.  Figure out the reasons why people do go to church if you want a taste of the hopeful.

 

Once in while a church dies.  Often it is because the people who prefer that particular fellowship have moved on beyond the community that once made up that membership.  But churches die hard.  They seem to have many lives.  Why?  Is it not that nearly all people, even whose who seldom go near one want the influence of the church near them, want their children acquainted with its gospel, prefer that their young people marry with its blessing, seek its ministration at the death of their kin?  The church is a reminder of a “power not of ourselves that makes for righteousness.”

 

Within the church, there are two ordinances of the New Testament, sometimes called “sacraments” -- baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  There is far reaching significance in these ordinances.  They are not merely rites, not solely ceremonies.

 

a)  Christian baptism is a dramatic reminder, the outward sign of an inward grace.  It is a reminder of the devotion and consecration we are to offer in gratitude for our salvation and the cleansing from our sins.  It is the badge of the Christian, instituted by our Lord himself when he asked for baptism by John and the Holy Spirit.

 

b)  The Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion is a love-filled reminder that God is not willing any should perish but purposes that all may find new life in His Son - abundant life.  It is a splendid reminder, within the church, that God is, that Jesus Christ is, that prayer is potent; that faith is victory!

 

Nether of these two ordinances can be substituted for the kind of living they symbolize, but they have their rightful place.  Used discerningly, reverently, they remind us of “that life which is life indeed.” 

 

We sometimes speak of what the church demands of us.  It is just as true that we demand something of the church.  Deep within our nature is something that yearns for it; is satisfied with nothing short of it.  It is wrong to belittle attendance at its worship; wrong to maintain that one can as easily worship God somewhere else.  There is much in nature to remind us of God’s creation and presence.  But actually nothing takes the place of worship in the House and Congregation of God.

 

And what we get out of worship and service in the church depends on what we bring of expectancy and purpose to put into it.  God has given us the Lord’s Day and his church as reminders that God is, and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him.

 

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, May 1, 1949.