Deep in the Black Hills of western South Dakota looms Mount Rushmore from which gaze the mighty stone faces of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln. They join the long parade of statues, obelisks, monuments, hieroglyphs and records that attempt to immortalize mortal men. From the dawn of recorded history, it has been enshrined in the human heart to “make us a name” (Gen. 11:4). The efforts seem largely in vain. How often out of curiosity, I have asked my hosts, while visiting their town, whose statue we had just driven by. With an indifferent shrug, they say they don’t know. Such memorials seem to be appreciated only by the local pigeons.
Even when the monument is noted and admired (like the Sphinx, or the pyramids at Giza, or the Colossi of Memmon), most of us would be hard pressed to tell you who we were supposed to remember by them. And when we do remember someone because their name is linked with it – the Nobel Prize, Lake Agassiz, Trump Towers – what are we expected to remember about them anyway? That a person is remembered may be to his shame, as with Hitler or Herod; what we remember is more likely to be the measure of the man.
Those who live to be remembered are usually the first to be forgotten, or if remembered, it is to hold them up as a bad example. Recall Absalom’s efforts in this regard. He built for himself a pillar to “keep [his] name in remembrance” (2 Sam. 18:18), but his true memorial is the pile of stones over his shallow grave, the mark of a rebel son. It is, on the other hand, those who live for others, who are happy to be unknown, that often leave a lasting memory. With the fragrance of her act still lingering in the air, the unnamed woman of Mark 14 was immortalized by her Lord with the words: ”Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her” (14:9). The contrast brings to mind the words of Emerson: “The mass of men worry themselves into nameless graves, while here and there a great unselfish soul forgets himself into immortality.”
In this issue, Don Norbie reminds us of the way our Lord is to be remembered. By this, we keep fresh in our hearts the cost of Calvary, the blessed terms of the New Covenant and the character and accomplishments of our Beloved.
John Bjorlie brings us another hero, the unknown John Darby upon whose gravestone are inscribed the words of 2 Corinthians 6:9: “As unknown, and yet well known.”
As we think of what ought to be remembered, it might be a good exercise to read again Hebrews 13. It’s a memory-jogger. We are reminded to remember: The strangers among us (v. 2); those incarcerated by cells, circumstances or ailing bodies (v.3); our marriage vows (v. 4); the multitude of blessings we enjoy (vv. 5-6); our elders (vv. 7- 8); the truth we have been taught (v. 9); our responsibility and privilege to sacrifice to God through good works and gifts (v. 16); and to pray for one another (v. 18).
Memory is the facility we use to take the past and make it useful in the present. But to remember these things is to invest the past in eternity itself (vv. 20-21).
Written by J.B. Nicholson Jr