Pastor's Corner: Stewarding our legacies

[Joshua 4:1-24] Visual aids make great memory joggers, don't they? Things like putting flags on veteran graves. With the phenomenon of a dried-up Jordan at the people's backs, Joshua turns them around for an object lesson. "What do these stones mean?" is the natural inquiry God and Joshua expect from the ever curious children of upcoming generations. Notice that the memorial celebrates not the people involved in this historic event but God who enacted the miracle (the second time something like this had happened!). Interestingly, these crossings of formidable bodies of water bracket events of the exodus (see also Exodus 14).

When you think of your own legacy, what comes to mind? What kinds of memorial stones will you leave for the benefit of your descendants and those whose lives you influenced? Will others be reminded of God's leading in your life?

Because we are fallen creatures, the idea that we could live forever is an invitation to total responsibility. If we lived forever, we would no longer care about our children because we would live beyond them. We would feel no responsibility to pass on the wisdom we have acquired in life. We would become insufferable in our presumed invincibility. We see from history what happens to people when they believe they have unlimited power - and how much more power could we have to believe we could live forever? That's why God's judgement on humanity was also a mercy; death delivers us from enduring a never-ending life of pride and isolation.

To the contrary, in the thought-provoking words of author J. W. Whitehead, "Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see." And in considering the words of Psalm 49:11-12, 16-20 and 2 Peter 3:10 the only mark that will truly last is our posterity. The concept is vividly illustrated by the first-century disciples. The mark these men and women left is in the fact that Christianity is still alive and well some two thousand years after they lived.

In raising a Christian family, the biggest opportunity for failure is in the hand-off - the transfer of values to the next generation. Although much can be learned by experience, it is parents' and teachers' intentional training that will give children the biblically based understanding they need to achieve success by God's standard.

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Pastor Michel O'Hearn

Hi-Line Lutheran Churches