IN REMEMBRANCE
THE LORD’S SUPPER
DR. JIM DIXON
FEBRUARY 19, 2012
1 CORINTHIANS 11:23-25
“Do this in remembrance of me.” Those are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, the words He spoke when He instituted the sacrament of holy communion. And of course, it is the will of Christ that every time we take communion, we remember Him. I’m sure it is the will of Christ that every day of our lives we remember Him, but communion is set aside in part for the purpose of remembrance, that we would remember everything about Jesus—that we would remember His life, that we would remember His love, the way He modeled love for us, and gave us the Great Commandment that we are to love God and we are to love our neighbor as ourself.
We remember not only His life and His love, but we remember His death and how His body was broken and His blood was shed for us in substitutionary atonement for the sin of the world, and for your sin and for my sin. We remember not only His life and His love and His death, but we remember His resurrection, that death could not hold Him, and that He rose from the dead and power in great glory. He is the hope of the world. And we remember also His promise that He will come again to judge the nations and come to receive His people unto himself. So this is a time of remembrance.
Now, I think it’s appropriate in conjunction with communion that we also take a look at this question: how do we want to be remembered? As followers of Christ, we remember Christ at communion and every day of our lives. But it’s appropriate to ask the question, how do we want to be remembered? How do you want to be remembered?
A few thoughts come to mind. Certainly many people want to be remembered for their accomplishments. I think this is very common in our culture and our society and our world. People want to be remembered for what they’ve accomplished. Now, you might be sitting there thinking, well, I’m not sure I’ve accomplished very much. Or you might be thinking not only that you haven’t accomplished very much, but you’re kind of old and not that sure you’re going to have a chance to accomplish very much. And certainly, some of us are older, but of course, we should be encouraged by the Bible, by passages like Exodus chapter two. In Exodus chapter two and three, we see Moses at age 40 and he’s living in Egypt. He’s been brought up in Egypt, obviously a Hebrew, a Jewish man with Jewish blood and proud of his Hebrew people. But he was raised in Egypt and educated in Egypt. At age 40, we’re told in Exodus chapter two, Moses saw an Egyptian beating up a Jewish man and he became enraged. He became enraged and kind of lost control. He killed the Egyptian and then buried him under the sand. And when people found out, Moses fled Egypt.
If Moses had died at age 40, Moses would’ve been remembered as a hothead and a murderer who fled the land of his upbringing. Now at age 80, if Moses had died, he would have been remembered as a shepherd. At age 80, as described in Exodus chapter two and into Exodus chapter three, we see Moses in Midian tending sheep. If he had died at age 80, if he had been remembered at all he would’ve been remembered as a keeper of sheep. But of course, it was at age 80 that God appeared to him in the burning bush. God manifested Himself in a theophany and revealed His divine name, which we call the Tetragrammaton. God revealed His name as Yahweh, which in Hebrew means “I Am” or “I Am Who I Am.”
Of course, God called Moses at age 80 to a new life. God said to Moses, “You shall go to before Pharaoh and you shall say, let my people go.” Moses became the leader of the Jewish people. He led the Jewish people out of Egypt, out of Goshen. He stood with great courage before the Pharaoh of Egypt said, “Let my people go.” Moses was the leader of the Exodus who led the people through the Red Sea and ultimately through the land of Sinai. Then at Mount Sinai, at Mount Horeb, Moses received the law, and he became the law giver as he brought the tablets of stone down from the Holy Mountain.
So passages like that ought to encourage us that all of Moses’ accomplishments were after age 80. Think about Moses, or even think about Grandma Moses. Think of what Grandma Moses did. It was all after age 77. Because she had developed arthritis, she could no longer embroider, and so Grandma Moses began to paint at age 77. That was her new career, and she wound up painting more than 1,500 paintings, which have become classics. Today her paintings have great value. And of course, it’s a little-known fact that she actually painted more than 400 of her paintings after the age 100. So that is strong encouragement in terms of accomplishments. You could still accomplish much.
But ask yourself this: what do I want to accomplish? How do I want to be remembered for my accomplishments? What do I want to accomplish? And of course, what we should want to accomplish and the way in which we should want to be remembered really relates to eternity. We want to accomplish things that have eternal significance. We want to accomplish things that have an everlasting impact, but we want to accomplish things that are not just for the moment, not just transitory things.
The key to this accomplishing things in our life so that when we die we are remembered in the right way is really revealed in Isaiah chapter nine. Isaiah chapter nine is a passage many of you have heard (or at least parts of it) and many of you have heard it at Christmas time. It’s a passage that prophesies the coming of the Messiah, the coming of the Christ.
Isaiah 9:6 says, “Unto us, a child is born. Unto us, a son is given. The government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, the Prince of peace. And of the increase of his kingdom, there shall be no end.” Now, this passage actually has a lot of controversy, particularly the titles given to Jesus Christ. I mean, “His name shall be called wonderful counselor.” Is that one title or is that two titles? “His name shall be called wonderful, counselor, or “wonderful counselor?” So scholars debate. Are there four titles here or are there five titles? And of course, there is the title El Gibbor—the Christ, the Messiah, shall be the Mighty God. This has huge significance in terms of Christology and theology.
The deity of Christ is often debated in terms of its scope of meaning by scholars. Of course, the title the Prince of Peace, Sar Shalom, is often debated. Does this mean that He offers inward peace, peace in the soul, or does it refer to global peace and national and international peace? And of course, as we look at the Bible as a whole, we know that it means all of these things. He offers peace in every form. He is Sar Shalom, the Prince of Peace.
But the most controversial title given to Him is in Isaiah 9:6 is the title Everlasting Father. Why would the Messiah, the Christ, Jesus, who is the Son of God, who is the Son of the Father… why would He be given the title Everlasting Father? Shouldn’t it be Everlasting Son? But He is given this title Everlasting Father.
Of course, there are a number of possibilities. Certainly it is true He reveals the Father. He reflects perfectly the glory of the Father. But it is also true that in the Hebrew the words “Avi ad” can mean, not “everlasting father,” but “father of everlasting.” So the idea would be that the word “avi” in Hebrew not only means father, it can mean source, or creator. So the idea would be that Jesus is the father of eternity, the source of eternity, the creator of eternity. This is an amazing title. And of course, it fits with other things said in the Bible about Jesus Christ—that He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning of the end, with neither beginning of days nor end of life.
So if you want to accomplish things in your life that have eternal significance, it’s all bound up in Him. If before you die you want to accomplish some things that have eternal significance it’s all tied up with Christ. So when you teach Sunday school in the church of Jesus Christ, you have a chance to make an eternal impact. I’m 66 years old and I remember clearly some of my Sunday school teachers, like Mel Zimmer and Norm Stein. They taught me in third grade and in fourth grade. When I was ordained to the gospel ministry, I had my Sunday school teachers come and actually speak because they had impacted my life and I’d grown to love and appreciate them. And of course, they’ve had an eternal impact on me. Perhaps by God’s grace I’ve had on some other people an eternal impact. There’s a domino effect.
But when you serve Christ, eternal things happen. And when you go into the inner city in ministry and you tutor a child through one of the ministries in our church where we train you and we equip you and you go into the inner city, you have eternal significance as you share the love and the gospel of Jesus Christ with an inner city child. You help them grow up, and you help them in their education, and you help them ultimately find the dignity of a job. But you have eternal significance in their life.
And of course, this is true when you do a short term mission. Even many who have sat in the chair have felt the call of God to go to the mission field on a permanent basis. But there is eternal significance. And of course, part of every dollar you give to the church of Jesus Christ goes to the poor. Part of it goes to ministry for body and soul, but it has eternal significance because it’s all tied up with Christ. It’s all tied up with Jesus.
Certainly we want to be remembered for our accomplishments. And some of those accomplishments, hopefully, will have eternal meaning. I think it’s also true that people want to be remembered for their relationships, not just for their accomplishments. I think people want to be remembered for their relationships. I think most of us want to feel that after we die there’s going to be some people for whom our relationship was precious, and they’ll remember us for very close friendship. I think a lot of people, when they died, their greatest hope was that they would have touched so many people in a loving way that they would be remembered through those relationships.
I don’t know how many of you recently have read the memoirs of Mimi Alford. Her memoirs are called Once Upon a Secret, and they’ve recently been released. She was a White House intern during the presidency and the administration of JFK. In her memoir, she claims that for a year and a half she was used and abused by the president of the United States, John Kennedy. She says she was used and abused sexually, and that he, as president, kind of used his authority to force her to do it—or she felt forced to do things she did not want to do, and even to do things with other people as he watched that she did not want to do. She claims that eventually she traveled with him and that she was brought in kind of a stealth ,secret way on his trips, kind of like his personal prostitute.
Of course, we do not know the authenticity of her memoirs, but we do know this. Scholarship on this subject is pretty much united. JFK—despite many strengths, despite his charisma, despite his significant intellect, and at times great courage—was a serial womanizer. It’s just generally agreed by historians that he was even a pathological womanizer. I think what a lot of people don’t know is he had a lot of questions in his soul. And on January 18th, 1961, two days before John Kennedy was inaugurated to the presidency, he called Billy Graham. He called Billy Graham, and he said, I’m going to be taking a trip here soon. As I start my presidency, I’m going to be taking a trip down to Florida. It’s going to be a short trip. I’m going to go with Senator Smathers. We’re going to go on my jet, and we’re going down to the Kennedy compound in Florida. We’re going to just play a little golf, have a little dinner, spend the night, and come back. But I would love you to go with me, Dr. Graham, because I have questions I want to talk about. So Billy Graham said yes, and in one of Billy Graham’s later books he describes all this.
So Billy Graham said yes, and he went with JFK down to Florida. They did a round of golf, they had a little dinner, and then that evening John Kennedy asked his questions. Billy Graham said they were all about Christ, and particularly the second coming of Christ. And JFK wanted to know, do you believe, Dr. Graham, that Jesus Christ is going to come back to this earth? Do you believe in the second coming? And do you believe He’s going to come back in my lifetime? That’s what John Kennedy asked.
And Billy Graham said, yes, I believe Jesus Christ is going to come back. And he took him through all the Bible prophecies. He said, I believe Jesus Christ is going to come back. He will come to receive His people and He will come to judge the nations. And after their time together was at an end, they flew back to DC and Billy Graham went back to his home when they departed. JFK could not have known he had only 1,000 days of life left. Exactly 1,000 days after Billy Graham and John Kennedy parted, JFK died. And of course, that was November 22nd, 1963. He was tragically assassinated.
I wonder if he had known he only had a thousand days. If he had known he only had a thousand days, would it have changed anything? If he actually knew he only had a thousand days of life left, would he have treated women differently? Would he have changed his behavior patterns—behaviors he’d been taught by his dad, who was a chronic womanizer and who modeled all the wrong things in terms of the objectification of women? Would it have changed anything if he knew he only had a thousand days? Would it have changed the way he treated Jackie and the way he viewed marriage and the way he viewed fidelity and faithfulness in marriage? And would it have changed the time that he spent with his kids—the amount of time, the quality of time? Would any of that change if he knew he only had a thousand days? Would it have affected his friendships?
Of course, these are things we cannot know. We do know this: as we’re seated in this room, we don’t know the number of days we have. I mean, you don’t know. I don’t know. You don’t know whether you have a hundred days or a thousand or 10,000. You don’t know. But how do you want to be remembered? And don’t you want your relationships to be noble? And don’t you want your relationships to be loving? And don’t you want your relationships to be faithful? And don’t you want to cultivate those relationships most important to God, as revealed in His Word? And of course, it’s Lord Jesus who told us that all the commandments of God are summed up in love, and that our primary relationship is love of God, love on the vertical. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.” This is the Shema. This is the primary relationship. Then Leviticus 19:18, quoted by our Lord Jesus Christ, says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” So surely, when we die, we want to be remembered not only for our accomplishments, but for our relationships.
This really leads us to just another category, and that’s character. Don’t you want to be remembered for your character? Character is so precious to God. I think of the words of Martin Luther King Jr. On August 28th, 1963, before the Lincoln Memorial, as he spoke to an assembled crowd of 200,000 people, he gave his I Have a Dream speech. And he said, “I have a dream that my four little children might live in a nation where they are judged not for the color of their skin, but for the content of their character.” And this is what’s so important to God, the content of our character. It’s not just about accomplishments or even relationships, but our character.
If our character is good, our relationships will be better. I think accomplishments tend to follow if our character is good. And of course, the Bible tells us that when we come to Jesus Christ and we accept Him as Lord, we come to the foot of the cross and we embrace Him as our savior from sin, in that moment He brings us into the family of God and grants us eternal life. He seals and secures our soul. In that moment, the Bible says, He actually sends His spirit to live within us. And His spirit brings to the character of God, the fruit of the Spirit.
But of course, that’s the new nature. The Bible says Jesus brings the new nature to us, but we still have the old nature. So there’s this war within us. There’s this battle within as the old nature, the fallen nature, the sin nature, is at war with this new nature in Christ Jesus. And the new nature is the fruit of the Spirit—Galatians chapter five—and it’s summed up as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. And this is the character of God. This is the character of Christ. As Jesus has given the Holy Spirit to us, we have the beginning of that character this side of heaven. We will never have the fruit of the spirit in fruition, but we’re to grow. We’re to grow, and when we die we want to be remembered for our character.
Wouldn’t it be great if when you die people could say, wow, I saw in her or in him love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Wouldn’t it be great if when we leave this world the people who knew us saw a little bit of Christ in us? Wouldn’t that be great?
You know, one of my favorite passages is the first chapter of Hebrews, and particularly the first few verses of the first chapter of Hebrews, where it describes the glory of Jesus Christ, the glory of the Son of God. And the Book of Hebrews is written in very eloquent, almost classical Greek. And we don’t know who the author of Hebrews was, we just know that it was inspired of God. And these words are written in the book of Hebrews: “In various ways, God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken through His Son, whom He has appointed the heir of all things. And through Him also He created the worlds, through whom also He created the universe. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of His nature, the very impress of His essence, upholding the universe by His word of power.”
Aren’t those incredible words describing Jesus Christ? That He reflects the glory of God and bears the very impress of His nature or essence. And of course, the word for impress in the Greek is the Greek word “charakter” from “charax.” Charakter is the word used in the passage, and it’s the word from which we get the English word character. And it means the kind of impress that a signet ring creates when the signet ring is punched into wax. The impress is the exact replica of the face of the signet ring. So it’s saying that Jesus is the exact expression of the Father. You want to know what the Father’s like? Look at Jesus. He is the exact impress of the divine nature.
Here’s the other thing, though. The Bible then goes on to say that as Christians, as followers of Christ, we’re supposed to bear the image of Him so that people look at you and they look at me and they see the impress of Christ upon us. They’re supposed to see the image of Christ in us. They’re supposed to see the exact replica of the character of Christ.
Of course, it doesn’t happen in fullness in this life because we’re flawed and we’re sinners. But wouldn’t it be great if, when you die, people could say, “I saw Jesus in her.” “I saw Jesus in him.” Isn’t that how you’d want to be remembered? “I saw Jesus through him or her.” So we want to be remembered by our accomplishments, by our relationships, and certainly by our character.
I have one final thought. Have you ever thought about a place where people might remember you? Now, I know that remembrance is not a geographical thing. I know that when you die, you’re going to want to be remembered by those who knew you and loved you wherever they are. But have you ever thought about a place where people might come and remember you?
Of course, we live in a world where this is exactly what people do, and that’s why we have cemeteries. We have cemeteries all over our country and all over the world, and people are buried there and they have their graves there and friends and loved ones come and they put flowers there and they remember there, right? And of course, in these cemeteries, people are buried in the midst of huge diversity. I mean, there are Christians buried in most cemeteries, and there are Jewish people, and there are Muslims, and there are Hindus, and Buddhists, and atheists, and agnostics all buried in the same cemetery, and hopefully buried with respect. But understand that in Christian history it was different. In Christian history, Christians wanted to be buried with Christians. They knew that when they died, their souls left their bodies. They knew that their souls went immediately to be with Jesus. They knew that their body would return to dust—dust to dust ashes to ashes—but they wanted to their body to be left in a place which testified to their faith and to the community of faith. So they were buried in churchyards.
So you go back and you even look at American history. You can go from Williamsburg to Boston, and where were Christians buried? They were buried around their churches. And you see it in all the old churches that graveyards surrounded the churches. And the believers in Christ were buried right there with the congregation in which they worshiped and served. And it was the duty of the church—and indeed, through all the centuries, is the duty of the church—to serve the people of Christ from birth to death.
So you had this idea that by your very death you would bear testimony to your faith and to your commitment to a community of faith, and you were buried in a churchyard. Well, we’re doing something a little different for our time here at Cherry Hills Community Church. We’re starting a memorial garden, and it’s going to be between the chapel and the atrium. And it’s going to be beautiful, and it will be for us as Christians when we leave this world to have our remains here. And there will be niches for the community of faith. I want you to see a little video that just kind of gives you a glimpse of what this is about.
“Well, it started 23 years ago when Jim married us. It’s our home church, and it’s home to us. And when we saw the plans and the pictures of the memorial, we thought, this is it. We’re happy. What a great place to be for our family and people to come and see. What a beautiful spot. And to be on the grounds, I think is very, very peaceful. And I think another thing too is it’ll always be cared for. The reason this made so much sense to us is we talked about cremation, and I said to Linda, I’m okay with cremation, but I really don’t want to be on the mantle.”
“The memorial garden’s really important to me because of a personal experience that I had with my mom. She passed away really suddenly about two and a half years ago, and part of her wishes were to have her ashes spread in a place that was really significant to our family. But as we went through the process of making this all happen, we found out very quickly that that place is actually property of the city and county of Denver. And they let us know, in no certain terms, that it was not a burial ground and don’t even try it. You know, I think it’s so easy to say that you want your ashes scattered somewhere that’s really significant and important to you. That’s an easy thing to say. But when you actually have to carry out that wish, it’s a whole lot harder. And so, a memorial garden concept is a way to honor her the way that I feel like she should have been honored. And so, this is what I want for my husband and I. And I want for my son to never have to make a decision like that.”
“We’ve lost one of our children. And one of the questions as a father I was facing was, what am I going to do? How are we going to handle this? What are we going to do with Abby? It’s comforting to know that we’ll have a part of Abby close by. It will be nice to be able to visit from time to time and spend some time there.”
Oftentimes when you’re younger, you don’t think a whole lot about those things because you can’t imagine that that time’s ever going to come. In the last 10 years, or more even, we’ve thought about and keep saying we really need to take care of that. That’s just something we don’t want our kids to have to deal with when the time comes. We need to have preparations made. We thought, what a better place than right here, in the church that has meant so much for about two thirds of our life. But we thought that was a great answer to prayer because we didn’t know where else to go. This church means so much to us.”
“It is part of life. You know, it’s a tough part, but it’s just part of life.”
“I don’t want to say I’m excited about it because I’m not really ready to leave, but just the piece of knowing where my remains will be is what’s so important to me.”
“Well, the first thing I want to make sure of regarding the Memorial Garden is that I want to be on the right side of Jim with Carol on the left!”
Well, I do love Ed and Carol and would be honored to have them to the right of me. I want to be on the right hand of Barb, that is what I want. I know it’s a tough subject and most of us don’t even want to think about death, but it’s actually a beautiful subject because this is when we enter into our eternal inheritance and our souls leave these bodies and our soul and spirits go to heaven with the promise of new bodies and an eternal life itself. We leave these bodies behind.
The Jewish people had a variety of ways that they cared for their departed and their loved ones. Sometimes they were cremated. The flesh was burned, and the bones buried. We see that in 1 Samuel chapter 31. We see that in Amos chapter six. But sometimes they were put in sepulchers. The Jewish people buried their loved ones in sepulchers, and they really weren’t buried. They were placed in sepulchers, and normally they were above ground. And sepulchers were either natural caves or caves that were built. Or they were small buildings that were made of stone or marble that held entire families. Those were sepulchers.
Sometimes they did bury loved ones in the ground. In fact, archeological evidence is that in the times of Israel when they did bury in the ground, they were buried oftentimes vertically, so as to save geographical land space, instead of being buried horizontally. But it doesn’t matter. I mean, for the Bible it’s no issue of how you choose to take care of your remains.
The Bible says, “We are dust and to the dust we shall return. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.” Eventually we’re all kind of cremated. I mean, it doesn’t matter whether it’s quick or whether it’s a long period of centuries. Obviously we all go to dust. But it’s a beautiful thing to think about the call of the church of Christ to care for its people from birth to death, and to testify always of our community of faith and our commitment to that community. So this is a wonderful ministry of the church.
I know Barb and I have already reserved a niche out there, and my brothers and their wives have also reserved a niche out there. We think it’s a beautiful thing. But what I would hope is that whenever you hear about the Memorial Gardens, or whenever you walk past them, you would ask the question, how do I want to be remembered? I mean, that’s really what I hope—that every time you go past them, you’ll ask the question, how do I want to be remembered? Certainly part of it is accomplishments in life. Part of it is relationships. A lot of it is character. And, certainly as we come to the table, we want to be remembered for our faith. So before we come to this table, let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.