Nicole and I used to live near Washington DC. Periodically we would travel into the city and visit the National Mall where there are many memorials to presidents, wars and activists. One of my favorite places to visit in DC is the Lincoln memorial. The memorial itself is an inspiring sight. Entering the central chamber one is overwhelmed with a massive marble statue of Lincoln. His statue is flanked by the Gettysburg address on the north wall and his second inaugural address on the south wall.
When We think of the time in which Lincoln governed, the U.S. was at a crossroads of monumental importance. The North and South were in a bitter war that threatened to tear the fabric of the country. When Lincoln was elected to his second term, the country had been in war over three years and the country was growing increasingly weary of the bloodshed. In his inaugural address, Lincoln stated:
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’.
Lincoln’s speech and the memorial to him are markers in the history of the American people. These are sacred institutions that are passed from generation to generation to remind us that the bloodshed of our countrymen purchased our freedom.
Memorials are not a present day phenomenon. Thousands of years before the first limestone slab was laid in the swampland of Washington DC, God used memorials to remind His people that He lifted a burden from them much heavier than the scourge of war.
One such incident is found in I Samuel 7. The Ark of the Covenant, which had previously been captured by the Philistines, had finally been returned, 20 years later, to God’s people. The Israelites under the leadership of Samuel had agreed to rid themselves of all the foreign gods and return to the True God with their whole heart. In the midst of offering a sin offering to the Lord, the dreaded Philistines plotted an attack. Samuel interceded for the nation and without an arrow fired, God routed the Philistines through a thunderous intervention. Grateful for what God had done, the Bible says in 1 Samuel 7: 12 that “Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebeneezer, saying “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”
The Ebenezer stone became a witness to that generation and has spoken to successive generations until today. That memorial reminded the Israelites and reminds us that the battle is not won by might alone…but the humble and contrite of heart are able to call upon the God who hears.
The church of the Living God has a long history of reaching out to those who are destitute and despondent. We have left memorials in the lives of those to whom we have ministered. We are the child’s Sunday school teacher whose prayer was remembered by the teenager offered his first chance at drugs. We are the counselor who compassionately listens as the young girl tells of her mistake with the boy who left town. We are the greeter whose smile and handshake was the first warmth the single mom had felt in days. We played the clown in kid’s church that helped the child shake the images of abuse the night before. We are the sound engineer who helped echo God’s praises to the lonely heart of the elderly widow. We are the usher who collected gifts to God for missionaries who had almost run out of food.
We set up memorials in the lives of people by our servant’s heart and Christ-like attitude. By our work for the Lord, we help people to see that “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”
In the New Testament, Mary Magdalene was so grateful to Jesus for lifting her out of sin that she broke a vial of very expensive perfume and poured it on the Savior’s feet. She went on to dry his feet with her hair…a sign of appreciation and devotion. Jesus said that she had prepared His body for burial and what she had done would be told as a memorial to her in every generation.
A few days later, Jesus greeted his disciples in the upper room with a towel about His waist and bowl in His hand. He washed their feet not just as servant-hearted act, but as a memorial that signified the enduring mark of Christ they would all share.
Servanthood rarely takes the grandiose path, rather it is “patient, kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. It does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
There are many who have never set foot in the Lincoln memorial, yet the words he spoke on Saturday, March 4, 1865 still inspire them to freedom. The rock Samuel set up as a memorial to the Lord may long ago have turned to dust, yet his proclamation “Thus far the Lord has helped us” assures us that God uses us in powerful ways whether we are serving or being served.