Joshua 4
1When all the people were safely across the river, the LORD said to Joshua, 2“Now choose twelve men, one from each tribe. 3Tell the men to take twelve stones from where the priests are standing in the middle of the Jordan and pile them up at the place where you camp tonight.”
4So Joshua called together the twelve men 5and told them, “Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the LORD your God. Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes. 6We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future, your children will ask, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ 7Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the LORD’s covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a permanent memorial among the people of Israel.”
8So the men did as Joshua told them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan River, one for each tribe, just as the LORD had commanded Joshua. They carried them to the place where they camped for the night and constructed the memorial there.
9Joshua also built another memorial of twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, at the place where the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant were standing. The memorial remains there to this day. (Joshua 4:1-9, NLT)
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NOTE: This post was inspired by our May 2017 Lowedown newsletter entitled “Nacho Libre and Stones of Remembrance”
Last weekend, our nation celebrated its 250th birthday.
It made me wonder, for those of us who are old enough, do you remember where you were when we celebrated our nation’s bicentennial birthday on July 4. 1976?
I remember exactly where I was and what I did on that day because it was the day we moved out of the house I had known my entire life into a different house in a different county about 10 miles away.
There’s actually a term that has been coined for our ability to remember what we were doing at significant points in time. It’s called “Flashbulb Memory.” When something significant happens, your emotional response causes your mind to store the details of that moment in your memory banks, much like a camera would take a snapshot photo with the flash going off.
Ask people who were alive when JFK was shot or when the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11 and many will tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.
July 4, 1976 was a unique event in our nation’s history. It registered to me as so important, that I remember where I was and what our family did on that day. Also, the fact that my only childhood move happened on such an historic day in our nation’s history probably compounded the “flashbulb” effect for me.
And yet, even though I remember what I was doing on that day, I don’t really think about it too often and it doesn’t shape how I live my life day in and day out. I can recall it if someone asks, but to be honest, nobody really ever asks.
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I think this helps explain how significant events in our lives can tend to lose their impact over time. We might remember the details if asked, but our tendency is to store those old memories in a shoebox in the closet of our mind, so we just don’t think about it. And if we don’t think about it, the emotional impact it once had loses its force in our lives.
It seems to me that many Christians are afflicted with a spiritual disease that I call “Divine Dementia”, the onset of which causes us to forget who God is and what he has done in our lives.
We see this pattern over and over with the Israelites in the Old Testament. God miraculously delivers His people from the Egyptians and totally vanquishes Israel’s enemies in the process. And yet just moments later the people forget about God and begin worshiping a golden calf.
How does that happen? I often marvel at how the Israelites can be first-hand witnesses to God’s mighty power and in the next moment they are adulterating themselves by engaging in pagan revelry.
The truth is that we all have a tendency to drift from God, to wander away from the truth, to be lured by our own sinful desires into godlessness.
There is a consistent pattern of waywardness among us all that is precipitated by a general forgetfulness of God’s mighty acts in our lives.
This is why God is consistently telling His people to REMEMBER.
Here in Joshua 4, as God is once again demonstrating His miraculous power to intervene on behalf of His people, Joshua is instructed to build a memorial. God wants His people to REMEMBER.
A leader from each of the 12 tribes was to take a stone from the middle of the Jordan River, the same river in which God had miraculously stopped the flow of water so that the Israelites could safely traverse it and get to the other side.
Joshua was instructed to take those 12 stones and build a memorial, which would serve as a visible and public reminder to all the people in succeeding generations that God had conducted a miracle that enabled the nation to cross the river and enter the promised land.
A memorial is not an idol. It’s not something we worship or venerate. It’s simply a tool to serve as a reminder of something significant that you want to preserve.
If you think about it, we already do this in every day life events.
Many people purchase souvenirs on their vacation to remind them of their trip. Others may put together a scrapbook of photos and mementos to chronicle a trip or special occasion.
Personally, I will often take photos from throughout the year and compile them into a short “Year in Review” video montage. Sometimes I watch one of my short videos from a few years prior and I’m reminded of people I saw and things I did during that year that I had forgotten.
Souvenirs, scrapbooks, videos and other mementos all help us remember special events, which in turn tap into our “Flash Bulb” memory as well as our emotional data bank. They help us to REMEMBER!
Our sinful tendencies make it easy for us to wander and drift from God. Just as Joshua was instructed to build a memorial to commemorate God’s power of provision for His people, we too can construct or create memorials that help us to remember God’s goodness and faithfulness in our lives, which ultimately can help us overcome the pitfalls and consequences of “Divine Dementia”!
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Reflection
Some people collect special items to help them remember events. For example, some people collect refrigerator magnets or decorative spoons with the names of the places they’ve visited engraved or screened on the item. What items do you collect to help you commemorate and remember special events and occasions?
As a baseball fan, I am in the process of visiting the home park of every major league team. When I visit a new park, I’ll often purchase something from the gift shop that serves as a memento to remind me of that occasion. I’ve bought hats, patches, pins, stickers, magnets and a variety of other items. I keep a lot of these souvenirs in an old cigar box that sits on the top of a credenza that’s in my office. Occasionally, I’ll open the box and look through all the items, which reminds me of trips and events that are special to me. In what ways are you displaying the mementos you’ve collected so that you can recall special events in your life?
It’s easy to think about souvenirs and mementos that remind us of vacations and special events like our wedding. But what are some ideas you have of how we can build memorials or create mementos that help us remember the important spiritual events in our lives? What are the ways we can create those visible reminders that might help us to keep from forgetting God and then drifting from Him?
What do you think are some potential dangers or downsides of collecting and displaying items that help to serve as spiritual reminders?
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
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