Talking stones of remembrance

Monuments are talking stones, inanimate objects that alone are silent but united speak volumes.

Bending your ear to their voices, you will hear the stories of the ages.

Memorials are planted in our present day to transport us to another place in time in order to point us to an ideal future.

The Bible tells the story of a man named Joshua who held the responsibility of leading the ancient armies of Israel into their ancestral homeland. Their first feat was to cross the Jordan River.

In their miraculous dry-ground crossing, Joshua commanded his armies to appoint 12 men who would collect one stone each from the dry riverbed. They were to take these stones and create a memorial for the generations that were to follow.

This was not an exercise in futility but one of remembrance.

Joshua explained to the people that when your children and your children's children see these stones and ask why they are here, you can tell them all that God did for them that day, what he did for them in the past and what he will do for them in the future.

For most of us Memorial Day is a day off.

It is a day of barbecues, apple pie and feeding America's addiction to shopping. The unofficial arrival of summer will be celebrated by eating more than we should and getting more sun than is safe.

In our celebrations we may or may not give a second thought to the thousands of flags that valiantly and mournfully blow across the graves of the generations of men and women who died fighting for the unalienable rights that were endowed by their creator.

Memorials remind us that all of life is fading, and there is more to life than we can see and touch.

The briefness of life to which memorials speak should also remind each of us who we are in God's sight.

The amazing truth of the scripture is that God wants us to know him and his purposes in this life as well as the next. The Lord has spoken this great love through a stone that shouts of its inability to keep death in its grave.

The empty tomb is the greatest memorial, reminding all who will stop and listen of who they are now, what God as done for them in the past, and the freedom from the paralyzing sting of death that comes through faith.

Rob Hurtgen is a husband, father and serves as the associate pastor at the First Baptist Church in Jackson.