Remembering… on July 4th

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. These stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever. (Joshua 4:6-7).

Throughout the Old Testament, time and again, God purposely sets up events and monuments and celebrations. Why? They were there to help God’s people remember God’s great acts of deliverance.

So after God kept His people alive in the desert for 40 years, and after they walked across the Jordan River into the Promised Land on dry ground, God had the people make a pile of stones. It was to be a monument to remember how God had provided for His people and an opportunity to celebrate God’s loving kindness.

The Passover was another such celebration. It was a time to remember how God had brought His people out of slavery in Egypt.

And lest we forget, we have the command to “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.”

The early Christians changed their day of worship to Sunday to remember Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, and His payment for our sins. But they did take time to remember. And we are invited… actually commanded to do so also… so that we might remember the great acts of God in Jesus.

There is an old “Seinfeld” episode where one of the characters on the show has invented a new holiday called Festivus. The major event of this manmade humorous festival was the “airing of grievances.” The made-up holiday was to involve sitting down at a table, and telling everyone else how they had been a disappointment to you over the past year.

As we approach July 4th, it’s tempting for us to turn Independence Day into a day of “airing of grievances” about all the warts of our nation. It is always fairly easy to come up with a list of complaints about almost anything.

But I think we would do well to look at this Sunday, July 4th, not only to remember the Lord’s Day, but also to remember God’s blessings upon us and our families and our nation.

My own family is of German descent. Millions of people from Germany came to this country looking for an opportunity to worship freely, because they no longer had that in their homeland.

Amazingly enough, not only was this country a place where they could worship freely, it was also a place where they had lots of other freedoms… to own land, to get ahead by working hard, to have a realistic hope of making a better life for themselves.

It’s rather clear that our founding fathers wanted us to remember Independence Day as being a cause for prayer and spiritual reflection:

When the Declaration of Independence was passed on July 4, 1776, one of the signers and the second President of the U.S., John Adams, wrote his wife and said, “I am apt to believe that this day will be celebrated by succeeding generations as a great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as a day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty… from one end of the continent to the other from this time forth forevermore.”

Think about it. There must be some reason that millions of people around the globe are still knocking at our door, desiring to become citizens of the United States.

There must be some reason, that when there are natural catastrophes around the globe, the people of the United States are still leaders in going to help.

About once each year, our church sends a group to help out at a sister church and orphanage in Honduras. Almost always, the plane is completely filled with Christians who are headed to the same country to lend a hand in dozens of needy areas in that Central American country.

Are we a perfect nation? By no means. Do we have problems that need work? Absolutely.

However, our Declaration of Independence has long been seen by many as a declaration of dependence upon Jesus Christ.

And how can we improve our nation? That question sounds much like the question asked of Jesus in John 6:29; “Master, how can we do the works that God requires?” Jesus answered: “Believe in the one He has sent.”

John Lehenbauer, Pastor

Christ Lutheran Church and School, Perry

christlutheranperry@gmail.com

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