Never Forget The Gospel

Today is September 11th. Today many will post pictures of the twin towers, many will recall what they were doing during the attack, and many will reaffirm that they are ever-vigilant and will never forget that around 3000 Americans died that day. Anyone reading this blog likely knows my politics, so I am not going to hash out my views of foreign policy or our country's role in the middle east. I am not going to comment on our relationship to Islam, or anything really pertaining to American current events. That being said, I am going to think about that phrase: "never forget".



Memorials help us remember the past. There are certain occasions that are so momentous we feel obliged to preserve their memory in our cultural consciousness lest we forget the lessons there to be learned. We often set up memorials to remind ourselves of these things. National tragedies usually result in memorials being built. The Pearl Harbor memorial and September 11th memorial are two different examples of this. Perhaps if we remember the pain and suffering we endured at our most vulnerable, we will be better prepared next time.

For victims, memorials take on a very special, emotional meaning. For God things are no different. 2000 years ago the greatest conspiracy in the history of creation was executed. Satan himself enlisted mankind in his rebellion in the Garden of Eden at the beginning of history, and since that day a cosmic war had been raging. This conspiracy was not undertaken to topple any earthly kingdom. It was an attack against heaven itself as the serpent struck at God himself. There is no crime greater than the creation striking out to murder the Creator. That is what transpired on Golgotha. Cosmic treason as the creature tried to assassinate the Creator. God condescended in love to take flesh upon himself to be like us, and we raised him up on a cross to be humiliated and killed.

The story of Joseph can instruct us here. Joseph, like Christ, was betrayed by his brothers to death and slavery, yet he rose from his disgrace to a position of great power in Egypt. Through Joseph, the nations were saved from famine. When he was reunited with his brothers who had betrayed him, he brought them into his glory and explained to them the purposes of God in their sin: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today". Jesus Christ, the Greater Than Jacob, was offered up on the cross, truly died and rose again, in order to save mankind from their sins. He now has been raised to glory and awaits his return to claim his inheritance. To any who will repent and believe in him and his work of redemption, he promises to give them eternal life, to make them his own inheritance.

The church is the memorial of the God who conquered sin, death, and the devil by becoming sin and dying on a cross in order to crush the serpents head. The church is a testament to the God who took the cosmic rebellion, the murder of the God-man, and purposed it in order to save the very people who betrayed him to death. The church is a memorial of the God who, conquered sin by becoming sin, who conquered death by dying and rising again, who made his betrayers his inheritance. We are guilty of the greatest crime in the history of mankind, the murder of God, and we are made his inheritance: we are the memorial of God's triumph! Though we were the traitors, now we are sons. Let us never forget it was we who raised up arms against God. Let us never forget Golgotha where the only innocent man, ever, died a sinners death. Let us never forget the tomb is empty because Christ has defeated death. Let us never forget we are his treasure. Let us never forget the gospel.