Remember what these stones mean

As many of you know, Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day because it started when family and friends wanted to remember and honor those who had died during the Civil War by decorating their gravestones with flowers and flags and every stone that was decorated told a story. Today every stone that is decorated with flags and flowers also tells a story. Some stones remind us of dedication and service like the gravestone of Dr. Reuben Hunter in Boalsburg. Dr. Hunter was a surgeon with the 54th Pennsylvania regiment and he died of typhoid fever that he contracted while helping wounded soldiers on the front lines. It was his grave that was decorated by his family in what many of us believe began our Memorial Day tradition. His gravestone reminds us of the importance of service and sacrifice and caring for those in need. This stone, however, tells another story.

This is the gravestone of Pvt. Amos Myers of the 148th PA Volunteer Infantry who was killed in action at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863 and this was one of the other stones that was first decorated in Boalsburg. This stone tells the story of courage and valor as young Amos fought for freedom and the preservation of the union in the battle of Gettysburg. Both stones, like all the gravestones we will remember and decorate this weekend, are symbols of sacrifice and service, but each stone has a unique story to tell.

These stones  tell a very different story. This picture is from the National Cemetery in Fredericksburg VA that I was able to visit last weekend and it is the resting place for over 10,000 Union soldiers who died during the battle of Fredericksburg. The battle of Fredericksburg is known for 3 amazing facts. It featured the first opposed river crossing in American military history as Union troops bombarded the town of Fredericksburg from the opposite side of the Rappahannock River as soldiers built a pontoon bridge in order to move their troops into the city. It then featured the first urban combat in US military history as Union and Confederate soldiers fought hand to hand in the streets of Fredericksburg, and then as the battle moved just outside of town 200,000 men were engaged in combat which makes the battle of Fredericksburg the largest concentration of soldiers in any battle during the Civil War.

If you don’t remember your civil war history, it was just outside of the main town of Fredericksburg that the Union Army under the direction of Gen Ambrose Burnside faced off against the Confederate Troops under the leadership of Gen. Robert E. Lee. The main battle was fought in a field where Gen. Burnside sent in wave after wave of soldiers to attack the Confederate troops who held the much higher ground of what is known as Marye’s heights, which was a hill that was protected by what was known as the Sunken Road. Even though the Confederate Army’s defensive position on top of the hill and along the well protected road was very strong, Burnside sent seven divisions of Union soldiers across an open field to attack the South, and not one soldier ever reached the Confederate line. During the course of the day over 13,300 Union soldiers were killed or injured. Most of the men simply lay in the open field during the night with their cries for help filling the air and literally tormenting the soldiers on both sides of the conflict. It was one of the worst losses for the Union Army during the Civil War, and for a piece of local trivia here, it was Andrew Curtin, born in Bellefonte, who visited the battlefield and then went to the white house and told President Lincoln that Fredericksburg “was not a battle, it was butchery.”

As I stood along the Sunken Road at the bottom of Marye’s heights and looked out over the field where over 10,000 men were killed in the course of a day, I asked our guide from the park service what they did with all the bodies. She said that after the battle many were quickly buried in graves throughout the town, but then in 1865 after the end of the Civil War, they were all gathered into the Fredericksburg National Cemetery where today over 15,000 soldiers are buried, 80% of them are unknown and almost all of them union soldiers from the battle of Fredericksburg.

The National Cemetery is an interesting place. There is row upon row of gravestones that simply have numbers on them.

The top number is just an ID number but the bottom number tells you how many unknown soldiers are buried in that plot. The stones in this graveyard also tell a story. They remind us of the sheer number of men who died that day. They remind us of the courage and passion that both sides fought with, but the battle of Fredericksburg was such a poorly fought battle with such devastating losses that it was the victorious Confederate General, Robert E. Lee who said after the battle, "it is well that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it." The battle of Fredericksburg was so physically and emotionally devastating for both sides that the stones in this cemetery remind us that war is ugly and tragic for everyone involved.

The stones we will decorate this weekend all tell a story. They tell a story of individual dedication and sacrifice and a willingness to service. Some remind us that war is ugly and that it robs our families and communities of our young men and women too soon. These stones tell us that life is short and precious but that sometimes freedom is worth fighting for. These stones tell us stories that we need to remember. It is good for us to have a day to remember what these stones tell us because we tend to forget things much too easily. God knows we are prone to forget which is why the number one command in the Bible is to Remember.

Throughout the Bible God calls us to remember his presence and power and his goodness and grace, and at times he even used stones to help the people remember. In 1 Samuel 7 the people of Israel were fighting a battle with their ongoing enemy the Philistines. Samuel was their leader at this time and he called the people not to fight harder but to turn back to God and seek his help. So all the Israelites gathered at a place called Mizpah and they rededicated themselves to faithfully serving God. When the Philistines heard that all of Israel had gathered together in one place they thought this was the perfect time for a sneak attack… this is where we pick the story up in 1 Samuel 7:10-14.

This is the story that we sang about this morning in the song come thou fount of every blessing. I like that we haven’t changed the words because when we sing, here I raise my Ebenezer, it forces us to ask, what’s an Ebenezer? It’s not the first name of Scrooge, well it is, but that is not what we are talking about here. The word Ebenezer means stone of help. Samuel literally set up a stone that told the story of how God helped his people during a battle and how it was God’s hand that delivered the people. Every time the people saw that stone it reminded them that God was there to help them. Every stone has a story.

I wonder if Samuel got the idea to raise an Ebenezer from Joshua. It was Joshua who finally led the people of Israel into the Promised Land and the last leg of their journey was to cross over the Jordan River. When the feet of the priests carrying the ark of the covenant touched the water of the river, the waters stopped flowing and Joshua commanded 12 men, one from each tribe to pick up a stone from the middle of the river and carry it into the Promised Land. Joshua 4:5-7.

Those stones told a story. For generations to come when people saw those stones gathered together they told the story of how God delivered his people from Egypt, and how God cared for them for 40 years in the wilderness, patiently forgiving them when they failed and feeding them when they were hungry and even making water flow from a rock when they were thirsty. And those stones told the story of how God made both the Red Sea and the Jordan River turn to dry ground so that the people could cross over and live in freedom. Those stones told a story, the story of God’s power and faithfulness and love.

Actually, while God was the one who directed Joshua to set up those stones, the idea of stones telling the story of God’s presence goes all the way back to Jacob. Jacob was the grandson of Abraham and he had tricked his brother Esau out of a blessing and because his brother was mad and wanted to kill him, he was now fleeing for his life. As Jacob was travelling he laid down to sleep one night and used a rock as a pillow and during the night he had a dream where God comes and blesses him, Genesis 28:15-18. So Jacob was maybe the first person to build a stone memorial and that stone told a story. It told the story of God’s presence in a time of need and told the story of God’s faithfulness to his promise.

It seems like every stone in the Bible has a story. Even in the New Testament every stone has a story. I want you to picture a dusty road
with Jesus and his disciples standing alone with a woman lying on the ground and all around them are stones. Large stones, small stones, but dozens and dozens and dozens of stones and each stone tells a story because just moments before those stones were being held in angry hands. The woman at the feet of Jesus had been caught in adultery and thrown to the ground because the people were ready to kill her. They had stones in their hands and they were ready to throw them at her when Jesus knelt down and began to write in the dust of the road. What he wrote, we don’t know, but one by one people dropped their stones and walked away until the woman is alone in front of Jesus and all around them are stones. Those stones tell a story, a story of forgiveness and a story of grace. Those stones tell the story of God’s power to change hearts and maybe convict people of sin but to also bring forgiveness. Every stone told a story.

And then the final stone to think about is a stone that on Saturday sealed a tomb, but on Sunday had been rolled away.

This stone told Jesus disciples and that stone tells the world that death and the grave do not have the final say. That stone tells us that the power of God and the power of God’s kingdom is greater than any force of evil, any force of darkness, any force of wickedness seen or experienced in this world. The stone that was rolled away from the tomb tells us that there in nothing in our lives that God can not overcome. That stone tells us the story of God’s victory over every force of darkness in the world and every sin in our lives.

So every stone tells a story. Some of the stones we will decorate with flags and flowers this weekend tell us the story of courage and service and sacrifice. Some will remind us of the pain and the deep losses we face due to war. As we look at those stones and think about those stories, I hope we will also remember what these stones mean and the stories they tell. Like Jacob, these stones remind us of God’s presence with us and that God is faithful to his promise. These stones remind us that God will lead us through all the challenges of life and that through his grace and mercy he will lead us into his kingdom. These stones tell us the story that God is here to be our help – that God can be our Ebenezer. These stones tell us that while God convicts us of sin – he is also the one who forgives. These stones also tell us that God is victorious over all things even death and so they remind us of what Paul said in Romans 8:31-39.

Every stone tells us a story and today we need to not only remember these stones and the stories they tell

but these 'biblical stones" and the stories and the truth of God they tell. May we hear and trust and stand upon these stones – and ultimately may we trust and stand upon THE STONE, the corner stone – Jesus Christ.




Next Steps: Remember

Take time during this holiday weekend to remember those who have served our nation:

• Attend a Memorial Day Service.
• With your family, thank God for those who have served.
• Pray for wounded and recovering soldiers.
• Pray for families grieving the loss of loved ones due to war.
• Pray for peace.

Find ways to remember those who have served or are serving in our military. Check out organizations like the USO (http://www.uso.org/) and the Wounded Warrior Project (www.woundedwarriorproject.org) as well as contacting local units to see how to support our local friends and neighbors who are serving in the military.

 Take time during this holiday to remember:

•  A time you experienced God’s presence
•  A time you experienced God’s provision
•  A time you experienced God’s power and help
•  A time you experienced God’s forgiveness

Remember these experiences with a stone and share these stories with others.

Jesus is the Vine

Sometimes understanding the context of Jesus’ teaching makes all the difference in how we interpret what he has to say and today’s passage from John is just such a case. When Jesus talked about being the Vine and his followers being the branches and how important it is for them to abide in him or stay connected him it was immediately after the last supper, and yet before Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. It could be that all of the teaching found in John 14, 15 and 16 took place as Jesus and his disciples walked from the upper room across the Kidron valley to Gethsemane, which means they were most likely walking along a vineyard when Jesus said, I am the vine and you are the branches.


By choosing that moment, Jesus would have been using the vineyard as an object lesson to teach his disciples that just as branches need to stay connected to the vine if they are going to survive and bear good fruit so his followers were going to need to stay connected to him, to abide in him, if they were going to both survive and bear good fruit. Jesus knew that some difficult days were coming for his disciples and so he tells them that above everything else what they needed to do was remain in him, to rely upon him and to trust him for all that they need.

But what’s interesting to think about is that when Jesus shared this teaching as they left the upper room, one of his disciples was not there. One of Jesus followers had already been cut off. Judas had already made the decision to turn away from Jesus which tells us that he wasn’t really abiding in him at all. Although Judas had been there for all the teaching, all the miracles, all the sharing of faith and power and glory, although Judas just moments earlier had shared in the Passover meal and even had his feet washed by Jesus, he never really abided in Jesus at all. So as Jesus and his disciples walk along the road that night he tells them the importance of staying faithful and connected to him because one of their group had already been cut off. One had already shown that he didn’t really abide in Jesus which means, according to verse 6, that he had been gathered up and thrown into the fire.

Seeing this teaching in its larger context of Judas betrayal shows us that we can attend church our entire lives, but that doesn’t mean we are abiding in Jesus. We can attend worship services and Sunday school every week and go on mission trips every year, but that doesn’t mean we are abiding in Jesus. Judas had done everything right, he attended all the right events and served in all the right ways, in fact he held an office in this new little faith community of disciples; he was their treasurer, but he never really abided in Jesus because we see that in the end he had his heart set on something else.

So the question we have to ask ourselves is: what vine are we abiding in? Where is our heart? Maybe for Judas the vine was wealth or power or maybe it was control – but it wasn’t Jesus. What are the priorities in our life? Is the vine we aide in God or is it our hunger for wealth, power or control? Is the Vine our family, friends or our job? Is the priority that drives us in life simply doing good works, gaining lots of knowledge or amassing the most number of friends we can on facebook? If we are abiding in any vine other than Jesus, if our first priority doesn’t include God than in time we become like Judas, we get cut off from God and then we don’t bear any fruit, or experience any of the fullness of life God offers. So the goal for us is to make sure we are abiding in Jesus.

But what does it mean to abide in Jesus? The word abide means to remain or stay. To abide in Jesus means we endure and wait and live in Him. To abide means we find our strength and our life’s vision and our security in God alone. A great image of what it means to abide comes from Psalm 91:1-2.

We see here that to abide in God means that we find our security in the shelter of God’s presence or under the shadow of God’s wing. Think of the protective wing of a mother bird. It shelters her children, keeps them safe from harm and allows them to grow until they can fly on their own. To abide in Christ means that Jesus is our refuge when we are week and our strength in times of need and a fortress when all around us looks like it is about to give way. To abide in Christ means to trust Jesus and depend upon him for all that we need. It means we place our feet on solid ground when all around us is shifting or sinking sand. It means when nothing in our lives is going right – we still turn to God because we know he is still there to love us, forgive us and just help us to the next day.

Now the challenge for us as we talk about what it means to abide in Jesus is that we can’t turn it into a list of things we should do, because remember, Judas did all the right things but he still wasn’t abiding in Jesus. In college a friend and I talked at length about this passage because I always wanted to figure out HOW to abide in Jesus. I wanted the fruit, I wanted the love, joy and peace, I wanted the assurance that I was with Jesus and that the fullness of life he offered was going to come my way so I kept trying to figure out HOW to do it, and my friend kept telling me that the key wasn’t to do but to abide, to rest in Jesus, to trust that God was working in me. Remember, he would say, the branch doesn’t really do anything; the fruit is simply produced as the branch stays connected to the vine. The key isn’t for us to be doing all the right things; the key is to stay connected to and trust in Jesus. I have to say this is hard for me because I always want to be doing something to grow in my faith, but at times we just need to rest and trust in Jesus.

While all of that is true, I’m a pretty practical person, so on a practical level it’s helpful for me to know how to order my lives in such a way that I am able to draw what I need in life from Jesus. Trust comes as we grow in our relationships, so how do we grow in our relationship with Jesus? How do we stay connected to the vine? How do we abide in Christ? Well if to abide means to stay connected than anything that we do to help us stay connected to Jesus or anything that opens our hearts and minds and lives to the presence of God is going to be helpful. For example, worship is a helpful tool for us if we want to draw our strength and power from God. But by worship we aren’t talking about sitting in the pews and taking up space on a Sunday morning. What we are talking about is an open heart to receive the love and the power God has for us. Worship means opening our ears and minds to hear God’s voice and to be shaped by God’s message for our world. Worship means surrendering ourselves to God so he can shape our motives and our desires.

This was what Judas didn’t do. Judas just sat in church, he listened to the teaching of Jesus but he didn’t allow it to shape him. He heard Jesus pray and even served others the way Jesus taught him, but he didn’t allow the love and grace and message of God to shape his heart. So just being in worship doesn’t mean we are abiding in Jesus, but it is one intentional way we can connect ourselves to God because it is here that we place our selves in the presence of God. The key is for us to allow God to speak to us and shape us and have his way with us during this time.

Actually, any activity through the church can be a way to abide in Christ: worship, small group learning, serving together in Jesus name and prayer are all ways to stay connected to God and to allow God to shape us, but ultimately it is not the activity that connects us, it is the open heart and the surrendered life. The same is true with any personal disciples of faith like prayer, devotions and even fasting and tithing – they can help us get connected or stay connected, but they do not guarantee that we are abiding because abiding isn’t what we do - it is an attitude and state of our heart.

Sometimes it is hard to know if we are abiding in Jesus, but there is one sure way we can determine if we are, we can look at our attitudes and actions and see if we can identify the good fruit that comes when we stay connected to the Vine. Jesus said that if we abide in him we will bear much fruit – good fruit – and this fruit is outlined for us in Galatians 5:22-23. So the good fruit that God produces in us when we are connected to him is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. When we experience this fruit in our lives we know that we are connected to God. When we grow in this fruit, when we feel ourselves become more gentle and patient, more filled with love and joy then we know that we are abiding in Jesus.

But this isn’t the only good fruit we produce, look at Colossians 3:12-17. So compassion and humility are also fruit that is produced as we abide in Jesus. Being willing to forgive others is a sign that we are abiding in Jesus. So there are lots of ways we can evaluate whether or not we are abiding in Jesus, it just takes some honest self reflection, or inviting others to speak to what they see and experience in us.

Now if we aren’t seeing the kind of fruit we want when we evaluate our lives, then our hearts and lives might need to be pruned in order to bear fruit. Now pruning is the act of taking off of a plant the branches that are wasteful or extra. We prune back many plants in our gardens so that they will grow stronger and be healthier in the long run, even if the process itself is painful. The same is true with us. Jesus said that all of us who bear fruit – God will prune (John 15:2). So God will work in all of us to deepen our faith and strengthen our dependence upon him, but the process of God’s pruning is not an easy one, look at James 1:2-4.

The trials we go through and the testing of our faith is part of the pruning process because it is during the difficult times that we learn to trust God more. I had a friend who used to say, Jesus won’t be all you need, until Jesus is all you have. We may not be able to abide in Jesus until every other vine we naturally turn to and trust in has been taken away and while that process can be difficult and painful, if the end result is that we are more firmly abiding in Jesus, more faithfully trusting in him, then we are in a much better place.

Because Jesus chose the walk from the upper room to the garden of Gethsemane to give us the teaching, he shows us what abiding in him looks like and what it doesn’t look like. It doesn’t look like Judas, who although he went through all the right motions, had motives that were far from God. He didn’t bear any good fruit and was cut off from God. Abiding in Jesus does looks like the disciples who in the next few hours went through the most difficult trials of their lives as they watched Jesus arrested and crucified. While they struggled to be faithful and at times failed miserably, they never stopped abiding, because they never stopped trusting. Even during their failure, their hearts never stopped looking to Jesus and through those trials they got stronger and in the end – they produced much good fruit. That’s what abiding looks. We struggle at times, we even fail, but if our hearts keep looking to Jesus and if we keep ordering our lives in a way to stay connected to God – we will grow stronger and in the end we will produce and taste much good fruit.

We are all in different places today as we think about what it means for us to abide in Jesus. Some of us need to stop trying to DO so much and just rest in Jesus. Some of us need to order our lives around God’s presence and word so that we are able to more intentionally draw from the life giving spirit of God. And some of us, in the midst of our trails and failures, need to just turn our eyes to Jesus knowing that He is there.

No… we need to turn our eyes to Jesus knowing that He is HERE. So let us abide in Jesus and find life.



Next Steps

Jesus is the Vine.

What Vine are you abiding in? What are the priorities in your life?
God, Family, Job, TV, Sports, Friends
Good works, Knowledge, Social Media

What 3 practices currently help you abide in Jesus?
1.
2.
3.

What new practices can help you more fully abide in Jesus this week?
1.
2.

To abide in Christ often requires pruning (the cutting away of that which is wasteful or not productive). What needs to be pruned from your life so you can more effectively abide in Christ and bear fruit?

We abide in Christ to bear fruit (see Galatians 5:22-23,
1 Corinthians 13, Colossians 3:12-17).
Which fruit do you experience most often in your life?
Which fruit do you most want God to produce?