A Day Worth Remembering

There are special days in our lives that we find significant enough to commemorate with anniversaries. What are some of those that you celebrate loudly or mourn quietly? This week is full of significant days for me and my family: yesterday was my sister’s 60th birthday; today is Karen and my 44th(!) wedding anniversary (and Star Wars Day – May the Fourth be with you!); tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo (156th anniversary of the Mexican victory against the French at the Battle of Puebla) and our town’s annual Western Day parade and festival.

Every day is an anniversary of something for someone – a birthday, a wedding anniversary, a job or promotion anniversary, a graduation, a sobriety milestone, or the remembrance of the death of a loved one. And then there are those anniversaries celebrated nationally as holidays: Christmas, New Years, Presidents Day, and Mother’s Day, to mention just a few. Some entail big gatherings and parties, such as Thanksgiving; others are marked with  community parades and sporting events, like New Years. Some are more somber in tone, such as Memorial Day, others more celebratory like July 4th.

Each occasion has become almost ritualized into being remembered in certain ways – you wouldn’t expect to see a Mardis Gras style parade on Veterans Day, or hear a bugler play “Taps” at a New Years Eve countdown, or have the Blue Angels fly over my house on my birthday (though they did fly overhead on my birthday, once!). So, commemorations of significant days’ anniversaries have become important to almost all of us.

But is it a good and proper thing to do? I can hear some objections to annually celebrating anniversaries or remembering more somber events:

1. Don’t anniversaries keep us mired in the past? We can’t go back and change the past, so let’s live in the moment and be fully present for those around us. Look forward and build new memories rather than trying to hold on to past glories or feelings.
2. Most such anniversaries, especially at a national level, change or lose their meaning and reason for existing over time. Do Cinco de Mayo celebrants really even know about the 1862 Battle of Puebla when they lift their glasses of cerveza? Do people think about the end of World War I on Veterans Day (which used to be called Armistice Day)? Then there’s Columbus Day, which doesn’t quite have the support it once did. And what about St. Patrick’s Day, which is named after someone who wasn’t Irish or Roman Catholic? Unfortunately, the same can be true about our most important Christian holy-days, Christmas and Easter: what do Grinches and bunnies carrying eggs have to do with the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ?
3. There’s also the cost of such celebrating. Think how much we spend on costumes, decorations, and vast quantities of party food – money that could go to pay bills or feed the needy. Are we being good stewards of our resources to blow our money on New Years parties or Mardis Gras beads?
4. And there are so many different days to remember! Who can keep them all straight? (Asked by a guy who forgot his wife’s birthday . . . no, not me . . . I took my wife on a trip for her birthday . . . I’m just saying . . .).
5. There are some, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who say birthday celebrations are a pagan practice not celebrated by believers in the Bible. Only two birthdays are mentioned in Scripture, both involving non-believers and both ending in murder. (Genesis 40:20-22 – Pharaoh; and Mark 6:21-29 – Herod).

So then, what about remembering the anniversaries of special days and events? Right, or wrong?

The answer for me comes from Scripture, regardless of the bad actors like Pharaoh and Herod whose problem was corrupt life-and-death power, not celebrating birthdays. God has not only allowed us to hold anniversary celebrations, he actually commanded it!

1. Right from the beginning, God established order in the cosmos, for the purpose of people being able to mark the timing of events. In Genesis 1:14, God created the celestial lights “for signs and for seasons, and for days and years.” Then he established the Sabbath Day as a day of rest for people to remember that he rested on the seventh day of creation: “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation” (Genesis 2:3).
2. When God gave the Law to Moses and the Israelites, he codified the celebration of the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15).
3. Most importantly, when God acted to deliver his people and save us from enemies or from our own sins, he commanded us to remember what he did for us. He freed the Israelites from the Egyptians at the Passover, which he commanded them to celebrate every year (Exodus 12:14,17 -“And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever.”) The Israelites and then the Jews celebrated important feasts throughout the year to mark what God had done.
4. Even our Lord, when he instituted Holy Communion at the Last Supper, commanded that we are to do this, “In remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19), and Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:26, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
5. The Christian church year is comprised of one anniversary celebration after another: Christmas, Epiphany, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Reformation Day, All Saints Day and so on. Each remembers some special work of God on our behalf through his Son, Jesus Christ.
6. Speaking of whom, the weekly Christian worship on the Lord’s Day (Sunday) is actually a miniature Easter celebration. We can rightly proclaim, “He is risen! He is risen indeed!” every Sunday – actually every day, because he is still risen!

Okay, so celebrating the works of God through Christ in creation and redemption are worthy of celebration; but what about those special days in our personal lives? What about birthday and anniversaries, for example? I believe they are important days. too, and rightfully celebrated. Not only are they important in our life stories, markers of significant events we want to remember, they also are part of Christ’s story in us. We remember our baptisms, our confirmations, our conversions; we celebrate our marriages (blessed by God who gave our first two parents to each other in marriage, and who blessed the wedding feast at Cana in John 2); we remember the promises of resurrection and eternal life when we commemorate the passing of someone we love.

Christ became one of us, and lived life as one of us, in order to redeem us and reconcile us to the Father. Why would he not celebrate the good days in our lives, and weep with us at the sad days? He rejoiced when someone showed faith in him, and he wept at the death of his friend Lazarus, even though he knew he would raise him. And Scripture says the angels in heaven rejoice at the salvation of even one sinner (Luke 15:10).

Oh yeah, and the Bible even tells us Jesus’ age at two points in his life. (Luke 2:42 and Luke 3:23) Do you think his parents might have had birthday celebrations for him?

So, go ahead and celebrate those special days in your life: birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays, especially those days that mark what Christ has done for you and me. Those are days worth remembering!  As for me, I’m thinking maybe tacos for tomorrow . . . Happy Cinco de Mayo!

The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Genesis 40, Mark 6, and Colossians 2:16-19