On a corner property connected to our college is a hillside, once the home for settlers who braved moving westward from the safety of Boston. They paid a harsh price for their adventure. In 1675/6 a war party of natives came burning, killing, scalping and capturing. Only ashes were left behind. An engraved stone that memorializes that hillside. The stone is small considering the magnitude of what happened to those people.
Memorials are interesting. We try to build something that will keep us from forgetting. Yet, as hard as we try, our carved stones always seem inadequate, no matter how well designed. Stones with names can never compensate for the loss of flesh and blood. Memorials in time seem more meaningful than stones because time cycles round and round. Each time the day returns we remember. This is so much better than a stone that will fade away in the wind and rain.
God wanted us not to forget where we came from. We are not the product of an impossible chain of favorable mutations. We are the fruit of His loving design. When Moses descended Mt. Sinai with the tablets of stone, there tucked in the middle was the fourth commandment. It started with the word “Remember”. God had established a memorial in time. Every Sabbath day we are to stop our commerce and remember Eden. It became even more meaningful at the Cross. That wasn’t just a god from heaven who died for us. It was THE GOD who made us and paid the price for our failures by becoming one of us. John 1.
Memorials are, without a doubt, very important.
Written by Roger Bothwell on May 30, 2011
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