Reminders Help Me Remember

A pile of rocks to help you remember?  Really!

Well, these were big stones, the ones you had to carry on your shoulder.  Perhaps that would make it more memorable.  And there were 12 of them, one for each tribe.  That might help even more in going down memory lane!

God had commanded that these stones be set up as a memorial to help Israel remember what He had done.  Here’s how the passage reads:

When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”  (Josh 4:1-7)

But whether the stones would remain exactly in place, as a memorial, was probably not all that likely.  Could there be other, more durable memorials?  Here’s one that has stood the test of time: 

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”  For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. (1 Cor 11:23-26)

No stones here to help us remember, just bread and wine!  And Christians have instituted this memorial down through the ages.  And here’s one that will stand for all eternity, that is, if John’s vision is an indicator: 

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.  (Rev 5:6)

No stones here to help us remember, just a lamb that looks as if it had been slain.  But this is not just any old lamb; this is the Lamb of God who was slain to take away the sins of the world!