Worthy Memorial

Joshua 4:4-7

  So Joshua summoned the 12 men he had selected from the Israelites, one man for each tribe, and said to them, “Go across to the ark of the Lord your God in the middle of the Jordan. Each of you lift a stone onto his shoulder, one for each of the Israelite tribes, so that this will be a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’  you should tell them, ‘The waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the Lord’s covenant. When it crossed the Jordan, the Jordan’s waters were cut off.’ Therefore these stones will always be a memorial for the Israelites.”

          As we draw closer to Memorial Day Weekend our families will certainly be pulled away to different vacation spots to enjoy the three day weekend. Some of us may remember why it is that we are even celebrating Memorial Day, but for others it is just another fun weekend that we get to spend with family. While it is meant for us to celebrate those who have fought and died for our county here in America, I think that it can point us to a more fulfilling memorial that we should always be celebrating.

          In the section above we see that God has summoned the Israelites to build a memorial at the place where they are crossing the Jordan River at. Now why would God want them to build a memorial there? Well, if you will remember the people had been wandering around in the desert for 40 years because of their unbelief the first time that they went to scout out the Promised Land. Now the 40 years were up and it was time for the people to move in and take what God had promised them 40 years earlier. Now the memorial that the people were going to build would always stand there and remind them of two things. One, God miraculously stopped a river to allow the people to walk across. I don’t know if you have seen any rivers lately but they are pretty big bodies of water and to make one that is flowing stop is very miraculous. Also, this crossing the Jordan River would mark the beginning of the journey that would take them to a land where they would be free to live the way that God had called them to live if they just listened to God.