Memorabilia
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· 26 viewsThe resurrection is such an import event in Christian History. All Christians should celebrate the Power of that Sunday morning. Yet, so many christians end up celebrating in a way that is different than the Bible teaches. How does the Bible teach us to memorialize the resurrection? What traditions are distinctly un-christian?
Notes
Transcript
In 1884 a young man died, and after the funeral his grieving parents decided to establish a memorial to him. With that in mind they met with Charles Eliot, president of Harvard University. Eliot received the unpretentious couple into his office and asked what he could do. After they expressed their desire to fund a memorial, Eliot impatiently said, “Perhaps you have in mind a scholarship.”
“We were thinking of something more substantial than that… perhaps a building,” the woman replied.
In a patronizing tone, Eliot brushed aside the idea as being too expensive and the couple departed. The next year, Eliot learned that this plain pair had gone elsewhere and established a $26 million memorial named Leland Stanford Junior University, better known today as Stanford!
lockets
pictures
traditions
Memorial Day
Memorial Day
One Death
far more important
Power of the Resurrection
Power of the Resurrection
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
Power of the Resurrection!
Case for Christ
“If the resurrection of Jesus didn’t happen, it’s [i.e., the Christian faith] a house of cards.” - Case for Christ
And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
All of Christianity
Lives or Dies
on the Resurrection.
If it is not true,
everything is a farce.
If it is true,
surety that
all else is true.
For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
One Man
One action.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
Singular act
brings life!
Wheat
death for life.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
through His death
came life!
What the Resurrection Means for Us Today
What the Resurrection Means for Us Today
Everything.
Stories are True
Promises are Sure
Jesus is Alive
He’s Coming Back
Why Memorabilia
Why Memorabilia
Bible Stories
Memorial Stones
that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”
Sabbath
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Most important things
need memorials.
What you don’t memorialize you eventually forget.
Connection Between
Memory
Truth
MEMORY AND TRUTH
MEMORY AND TRUTH
Two middle-aged couples were enjoying friendly conversation when one of the men asked the other, "Fred, how was the memory clinic you went to last month?"
"Outstanding," Fred replied. "They taught us all the latest psychological techniques, such as visualization, association and so on. It was great. I haven’t had a problem since."
"Sounds like something I could use. What was the name of the clinic?"
Fred went blank. He thought and thought, but couldn’t remember. Then a smile broke across his face and he asked, "What do you call that flower with the long stem and thorns?"
"You mean a rose?"
"Yes, that’s it!" He turned to his wife, "Hey Rose, what was the name of that memory clinic?"
In Psychology, memory is an organism’s ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. In the Bible, the Greek word to remember is aletheia. Aletheia literally means to "not forget." And in the King James Version and many other translations of the Bible, the word aletheia is also translated as “truth.”
So truth, in the Bible, literally means to not forget. To know the truth means to remember.
If it is not remembered
it doesn’t exist.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”
The worst punishment
destroy the memory
of them.
Story to Illustrate:
Garbage Mary
Garbage Mary
A rags‐clad woman known to her neighbors as “Garbage Mary” has turned out to be a wealthy heiress from a Galesburg, III., family, police confirmed yesterday.
The woman was picked up at shopping mall Saturday and confined at the Banyan House Psychiatric Institute. She appeared to be just another derelict whose mind had faded.
Neighbors told stories of her scrounging through garbage cans for food, which she hoarded in her car and her two‐room apartment. They said she also begged cigarettes and ice cubes.
Police finally identified her as Kathleen Nelson Colley daughter of Sig B. Nelson Sr., a well‐to‐do Galesburg, Ill., lawyer, and bank director who died in 1974.
Relatives Discount ‘Fortune’
Detectives said evidence of bank books, stock securities, oil drilling rights and land holdings discovered in her car and scattered among the mounds of garbage at her $150‐amonth apartment indicated that Mrs. Colley may be worth as much as $1 million.
She was a millionair, but couldn’t remember that. Because the reality of who what was, had not been kept memorialized, she became demoralized.
We are also the heirs of a great fortune. Who we are must be memorialized. We must never forget the value of our souls.
If we forget
Resurrection
We also forget
who we are!!!
Why Memorialize?
Why Memorialize?
remember
celebrate
honor
pass down
If you go to Washington D.C. You will see the many different memorials. Among them is the Arlington National Cemetery. It was quite a moment standing there with my wife and children watching the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. It was a very special lesson for our children- our freedom that we enjoy every day comes at a cost. How thankful we should be for those that were willing to pay the ultimate price that we might remain free
God has given us another lesson as well. An even greater tomb- the empty tomb. The empty tomb reminds us that Jesus is the perfect sacrificial lamb, that His love for us was demonstrated at Calvary, that He has won victory over Satan, death, and the grave. When we share in Jesus' death and burial through baptism we will also share in His resurrection!
Wrong Memorials
Wrong Memorials
Easter
Easter
Have you ever wondered how this seemingly bizarre tradition came to be?
Well, it turns out Easter actually began as a pagan festival celebrating spring in the Northern Hemisphere, long before the advent of Christianity.
"Since pre-historic times, people have celebrated the equinoxes and the solstices as sacred times," University of Sydney Professor Carole Cusack said.
"The spring equinox is a day where the amount of dark and the amount of daylight is exactly identical, so you can tell that you're emerging from winter because the daylight and the dark have come back into balance.
"People mapped their whole life according to the patterns of nature."
Following the advent of Christianity, the Easter period became associated with the resurrection of Christ.
"In the first couple of centuries after Jesus's life, feast days in the new Christian church were attached to old pagan festivals," Professor Cusack said.
"Spring festivals with the theme of new life and relief from the cold of winter became connected explicitly to Jesus having conquered death by being resurrected after the crucifixion."
Easter takes its name from a pagan goddess from Anglo-Saxon England who was described in a book by the eighth-century English monk Bede.
"Eostre was a goddess of spring or renewal and that's why her feast is attached to the vernal equinox,"
Fertility Goddess
Ishtar may well have some connection to the rites of Spring, and admittedly Easter itself is an observance of Spring...
The Bible gives us richer traditions.
What are you memorializing?
Our actions
honor things
knowingly or not.
Paganism
Christmas
Halloween
Easter
More pagan
than Christian.
Christmas
winter solstice
life in death
evergreen trees
holly
fertility
Halloween
straight from witchcraft
spells
ghosts
mediums
ancestor worship
Should We Participate?
Should We Participate?
I’m not a fan.
Why?
Halloween
directly evil.
Parents say:
It is just innocent fun. The kids don’t understand the historical background.
Halloween
don’t make
what is evil
innocent fun.
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
Christmas and Easter
Memorials and Traditions
very important.
I don’t like
confusion of memorials.
Wicked?
probably not.
Creating Confusion
yes.
Hear, for I will speak noble things,
and from my lips will come what is right,
for my mouth will utter truth;
wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
All the words of my mouth are righteous;
there is nothing twisted or crooked in them.
They are all straight to him who understands,
and right to those who find knowledge.
God asks us
to speak truth
not confusion.
Feast Days
Feast Days
Also wrong memorial
True
Jesus died
Time to kill passover lamb
Rested
Feast of Unleavened Bread
Resurrected
First Fruits
We should understand
Fulfillment of Feasts
Christ fulfilled feasts
BUT
Keeping Feast is
not how we
memorialize resurrection.
"Christ discharged his disciples from the cares and burdens of the ancient Jewish obligations in rites and ceremonies. These no longer possessed any virtue; for type was meeting antitype in himself, the authority and foundation of all Jewish ordinances that pointed to him as the great and only efficacious offering for the sins of the world. ... To continue these rites would be an insult to Jehovah." — (Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, June 14, 1898)
"The passover suppers had been scenes of special interest; but upon this occasion Jesus was troubled in spirit, and his disciples sympathized with his grief although they knew not its cause. THIS WAS VIRTUALLY THE LAST PASSOVER THAT WAS EVER TO BE CELEBRATED; for type was to meet antitype in the slaying of the Lamb of God for the sins of the world. Christ was soon to receive his full baptism of suffering; but the few quiet hours between him and Gethsemane were to be spent for the benefit of his disciples." — (E.G. White, 3SP 83.3)
"Christ was standing at the point of transition between two economies and their two great festivals. He, the spotless Lamb of God, was about to present Himself as a sin-offering, that He would thus bring to an end the system of types and ceremonies that for four thousand years had pointed to His death. As He ate the Passover with His disciples, He instituted in its place the service that was to be the memorial of His great sacrifice. The NATIONAL FESTIVAL OF THE JEWS WAS TO PASS AWAY FOREVER. The service which Christ established was to be observed by His followers in all lands and through all ages." — (Ellen G. White, Desire of Ages, 652)
"On the fourteenth day of the month, at even, the Passover was celebrated, its solemn, impressive ceremonies commemorating the deliverance from bondage in Egypt, and pointing forward to the sacrifice that should deliver from the bondage of sin. When the Saviour yielded up His life on Calvary, the significance of the Passover ceased, and the ordinance of the Lord's Supper was instituted as a memorial of the same event of which the Passover had been a type." — (Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, 539.5)
CAE Christians
CAE Christians
People who
externally keep
two holidays holy.
Are missing the picture.
Always good
to be at church.
Never
turn one away.
Faith that stand
on two holidays
is weak
won’t stand
test of time.
Six miles outside of Manilla lies the peaceful but vast Manila American Cemetery. It is 152 acres of gently rising ground set aside to memorialize the military dead who served America during World War II in the Southwest Pacific Theatre.
The cemetery is laid out like a never ending circle---17,206 Italian marble crosses inscribed with names of the brave dead—crosses that stretch out in perfect circular rows. They come from every State in the Union, Panama, Guam, Philippines, Puerto Rico Australia, Canada, China, England, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Finland, Jamaica, Burma and Peru. In 20 cases, two brothers lie side by side.
Passing each stone, saying each name, one wonders how many wives, mothers, daughters, and sons have been able to visit the grave of their loved one in a cemetery so far removed from the rest of the world?
But there is still hope of reunion. The cross that covers each grave is the cross that covers sin, the cross that gives hope of the Resurrection. “For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam, all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” (I Cor. 15:21-22).
And then the greatest reunion of all will take place, when those from...
Right Memorials
Right Memorials
So far
I only said
two things.
Memorials (in general) are a Good and Biblical Concept
Some Memorials Don’t Fit Correctly.
Which ones do???
I’m glad you asked!!!
God gave two
for Resurrection.
Neither, occur during
specific day
season
They happen
throughout year.
Baptism
Baptism
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
Communion
Communion
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.
It is gratitude that prompted an old man to visit an old broken pier on the eastern seacoast of Florida. Every Friday night, until his death in 1973, he would return, walking slowly and slightly stooped with a large bucket of shrimp. The sea gulls would flock to this old man, and he would feed them from his bucket. Many years before, in October, 1942, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was on a mission in a B-17 to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea. But there was an unexpected detour which would hurl Captain Eddie into the most harrowing adventure of his life.
Somewhere over the South Pacific the Flying Fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio. Fuel ran dangerously low, so the men ditched their plane in the ocean. For nearly a month Captain Eddie and his companions would fight the water, and the weather, and the scorching sun. They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts. The largest raft was nine by five. The biggest shark...ten feet long. But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable: starvation. Eight days out, their rations were long gone or destroyed by the salt water. It would take a miracle to sustain them. And a miracle occurred.
In Captain Eddie's own words, "Cherry," that was the B- 17 pilot, Captain William Cherry, "read the service that afternoon, and we finished with a prayer for deliverance and a hymn of praise. There was some talk, but it tapered off in the oppressive heat. With my hat pulled down over my eyes to keep out some of the glare, I dozed off."
Now this is still Captian Rickenbacker talking..."Something landed on my head. I knew that it was a sea gull. I don't know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew too. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that gull. The gull meant food...if I could catch it."
And the rest, as they say, is history. Captain Eddie caught the gull. Its flesh was eaten. Its intestines were used for bait to catch fish. The survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because a lone sea gull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, offered itself as a sacrifice. You know that Captain Eddie made it.
And now you also know...that he never forgot. Because every Friday evening, about sunset...on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast...you could see an old man walking...white-haired, bushy-eyebrowed, slightly bent. His bucket filled with shrimp was to feed the gulls...to remember that one which, on a day long past, gave itself without a struggle...like manna in the wilderness.
Summary
Summary
Memorials are Important
Some Memorials Don’t Fit
Use Memorials that Do Fit
Appeal
Appeal
Celebrate Resurrection
Use Memorials
Shy Away From Pagan Memorials