Periodically I make a journey across the mountains into Kentucky and Indiana to see extended family members. I watch the odometer to check distance between towns and so measure my progress. After many such trips I am also measuring my progress by the roadside crosses that I pass.
Most have a name, full or nickname. Some have a picture, some elaborate, some sketched, at least one imprinted on a now faded tee shirt. Many have flowers, usually artificial, but some are fresh and seem to be replaced on a regular basis. We know each represents some terrible tragedy that in the blink of an eye took a loved one or ones from a family.
Those crosses are placed so that others will remember and never forget.
During the most recent trip, my elder son and I spent some time in the Cave Hill Cemetery of Louisville, KY, taking pictures of designs and inscriptions. The newer sections resemble most others in our current trends. The older sections, however, reminded me of the pictures of cemeteries in London, England or our own New Orleans. The monuments to the deceased were elaborate, ornate, imaginative, and many were BIG!
Statements of love and compassion adorned many. Statues illustrated the heroic aspects of the human spirit. Mausoleums were designed to appear as churches or small homes. Wealth was turned into stone to express the grief or pride or both in the loss of husband or wife, son or daughter. One thirty-foot monument even had the last will and testament concerning the material possessions of the deceased cut into it to insure there would be no doubt about his intents after his death.
The monuments were placed there so that others would remember and never forget.
One individual in the past made his memorial a living one. He expressed his desire not to be forsaken and forgotten while being crucified. He expressed his desire to the Son of God who was dying on the cross next to him. His cry of "Remember me" has lived down through the centuries as the cry of all of us as we turn our faces to God in our hours of greatest need (Luke 23).
"Remember me!" None of us want to believe that at our deaths our lives will become only as dust in the wind, blown away and never noticed again. We want someone somewhere to acknowledge that our lives had meaning and value, and that somehow something about this world is different because we lived. Did anyone notice that we passed by?
I believe that all such cries are remembered. Will our passing receive headlines? For most of us the answer is no. Few of us will ever be mentioned in a history book. Unless some future family member is big into genealogy, there is a good chance that your name will not be recognized by your own kin after about four generations. Yet our need to be remembered will not be ignored.
God doesn't forget anything (except our forgiven sins). In multiple passages in the Bible, we are reminded that God has taken steps to insure we are not forgotten. Yes, the Bible uses the very human terminology of books, but how else can we sinful mortals illustrate the fact that God will not forget us (Hosea 8; Malachi 4; Revelation 20)?
The response of Jesus to the thief on the cross is the answer we all long to hear. We will not be forgotten. We will not be ignored. We do not need to build huge monuments to ourselves to keep from being lost in history. "This day you will be with me in paradise." Such assurance need not be prophetic as to the time of our reunion with Christ. It is sufficient in that it reminds us that we will be united at some point. When is not important, only that we will be remembered.
