John 14:25-27
"These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
1 Cor. 11:23-26
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
The Hazen Brigade Monument on the battlefield of Stones River, at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is the oldest Civil War monument in the nation.
Resting close to the Manson Pike, a two-lane road that passes through the battlefield, the commemorative stone was the very first formal expression of Civil War memorial, erected even before the war ended.
The Battle of Stones River was fought from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863. It was one of the most costly engagements of the war in human lives.
Today, this earliest memorial is threatened by "urban sprawl."
Murfreesboro has grown and prospered. There are plans to construct a highway interchange on the core battlefield and private developers want to carve up valuable properties.
The memorial is old stuff to some today, not worth preserving.
But unforgettable to soldiers who felt a need for a monument to honor the thousands of brave soldiers who died, was the sacrifice they gave. Black troops of the 111th USCT (United States Colored Troops) did the hard, horrible work of removing the dead.
What resulted was a space that bound whites and blacks, Unionists with African American veterans together.
In fact, once Memorial Day was established, rail trains from Nashville would bring festive crowds to the new national cemetery. Even then there was friction over the value of the memorial. Many blacks objected to the lack of restraint by those who came for the fun rather than to pay respects.
A controversy already existed because Confederates were banned from the burial ground. But over the years that softened as the Stones River Battlefield Park was the first to include both Union and Confederate veterans as members erasing borderlines of North and South.
How easy to forget.
How simple to make a memorial simply an historical asterisk with no solemnity or remembrance of the costs paid for our liberties.
How short-sighted the aims of those who would devour and divide real estate without remembering the blood shed on it.
The church of Christ also has its memorial.
Although it is far more than a simple remembrance or ordinary marker, Jesus left us an everlasting Memorial. It is his own shed blood and crucified risen body by which He has delivered to us the Christian's liberty and life.
It is often overrun by the sprawl of worldly interests and priorities. Too infrequently it can be visited. The Sacrament of the Altar is squeezed and marginalized by other things which take precedence. It's old stuff to those who would soon forget the cost in blood our Savior paid.
Jesus knows we need something tangible, something real, something accessible to anchor us to Calvary where death and life collided on that fatal battlefield. We need a memorial that interprets for us the passion and victory of Christ and brings to us the benefits He fought and died to earn for us.
It's not enough just to drive by.
The house of God doesn't conduct drive-through ministry.
The church celebrates the living memorial of Jesus' body and blood continually, because it is through Christ alone that people of all races are truly bound together with each other and with Him. It is in the Body of Christ where divisions cease, conflicts are buried, and borderlines disappear.
Just as protection of America's natural and historic heritage requires eternal vigilance on the part of U.S. citizens to resist the sprawl that would swallow up remembrance of blessings given, we too, in repentance and faith, must remain attentive to the Lord's means of grace which place Jesus first.
He Himself invites us to receive often this memorial—this reality of Himself.
In a reckless age of thoughtlessness, God remembers. He continues to raise the Memorial of His Son to our lips that we may remember too. It is never old stuff.
Unforgettable to us who are saved by Him are His sacred Words indelibly inscribed in this memorial and in our memory, "Take eat, take drink, this is my body and blood for you for the forgiveness of your sins."
