MEMORIALS
A. A. Bellamy
Acts 10: 1–4; Hebrews 6: 10–12; 1 Corinthians 11: 23–There are memorials in heaven and on earth. Much is often made in these circumstances of a person’s memorial. Like Cornelius, our beloved sister, now with Christ, has a memorial in heaven. The irrelevance of a memorial on earth can be appreciated in the light of a memorial in heaven. It was said by the angel to Cornelius, “Thy prayers and thine alms have gone up for a memorial before God”. There are persons whose names are written in heaven, and such have memorials there. They require no memorial service here. Our sister’s life, in which for many years devotion, kindness, prayers, and alms have had a place, has accumulated for her a memorial in heaven. Persons composing the assembly have each a memorial in heaven, where also they themselves will be placed in due course at the coming of the Lord, to be with Him and like Him in glorious conditions eternally.
The passage in Hebrews refers to things which God does not forget, “God is not unrighteous to forget your work, and the love which ye have shewn to his name, having ministered to the saints, and still ministering”. Love to His name finds expression in ministering to the saints.
We may say of many who have gone before us, “having ministered”; but “still ministering”
brings its own challenge and encouragement to us who are alive and remain. Along with this ministration, such as Barzillai rendered in the
wilderness to David and the people (2 Samuel 17: 27–29), we are each to “show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end”, and thus to lay hold of, and go in for, what is the present purpose of God for us. The believer’s calling is sonship, and the hope of his calling is heaven. It is in this connection that the spirit of longing comes into Paul’s exhortation—his earnest desire for the saints. When the test came, Barzillai did not commit himself but Chimham (whose name means ‘longing’) went over the Jordan to dwell in Jerusalem with David (2 Samuel 19: 38). We are thus now to be committed to our heavenly calling.
Then there is a memorial that will never be in heaven. The Lord Jesus has left His memorial here upon the earth. He has entrusted it to faithful lovers, and it is of this, the most impressive of all memorials, indeed the administrative centre of christianity, that Paul speaks in 1
Corinthians 11. He quotes the Lord’s own words when He instituted the Supper, confirmed to him, and through him to us, from His present position as glorified. His words convey to every one who loves His name, and has His commandments and keeps them, His personal desire that we should call Him to mind. Nor is it irksome to any who truly love Him, that they should fulfil His desire so unmistakably expressed—“The Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was delivered up, took bread, and having given thanks broke it, and said, This is my body, which is for you—this do in remembrance of me”. This memorial will not be needed in heaven, ‘in the peace that His presence shall crown’ (Hymn 139). It is in the local assembly, during the time that He is absent, that we remember Him—“Ye that have escaped the sword, go, stand not still—remember Jehovah from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind”, Jeremiah 51: 50.
May the Lord touch every heart, that we may not only be diligent in ministering to the saints, but allow nothing to interfere with our response to His desire to remember Him in the way He has appointed.
Substance of word at the burial of Miss E. M. Ratcliffe, Buckhurst Hill
24 January 1977