A week ago today, October 1, the Association of Independent Funeral Directors laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac from Washington, D.C.

It was a solemn ceremony.  The guard upheld duty to perfection.  Civilian representatives of the Funeral Directors Association stepped forward accompanied by a impeccably uniformed officer.  A bugler played Taps as everyone else stood in silence with hands on their hearts.

A trip to our nation's capital brings to mind a great many dead.  Nearby Mount Vernon has the tomb of our first president, George Washington.  Federal monuments to Lincoln, Jefferson, and various other memorials throughout the city dignify the memories of great statesmen, fallen military, and historic figures.

All this effort to remember the dead. 

And yet, with very few exceptions every human life on earth is eventually forgotten.  Even magnificent monuments often become greater attractions than the people they were built to commemorate.

Today school busses disgorge kids at the Lincoln Memorial, but most seem more interested in racing each other up the marble steps and taking noisy snap shots of each other than in reading the engraved portion of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address or really remembering the man who spoke it.

But such is in the nature of our human race. 

The gift of a memory is a wonderful blessing, but memories fade quickly.  We lose track of what's important and often fail to recall the very things for which others may have sacrificed their lives.  We soon forget even when we promise otherwise.

The memory of the Lord, however, is flawless.  Saying this is not simply to admire God's capacity for recall like someone who happens to be especially good with names or can memorize lots of Bible passages.  God is more than simply good with facts or endowed with a photographic memory. 

God's remembrance is the divine guarantee that His children will never be separated from Him.  Here, remembrance isn't simply mental.  With God it is essential, that is, of His very essence.  God remembers you inside his own flesh.  He remembers you in the depths of his guts.  He knows you completely and has you contained in the marrow of his very bones.

There will never be so much as a hair line fracture in the promises He has made to you.  Not the tiniest splinter will ever disturb His grasp upon your life and welfare.  By the cross He showed that You are more dear to Him than life.

He likens himself to a mother who cannot forget her nursing child.  Her whole being is bound to her child.  Her thoughts, her heart, her attention, and even her body all concentrate upon the child she loves.  This remembrance is not just something God chooses to do or sets His mind to do.  His entire being, God's whole nature, holds you in absolute love and mercy.  God has engraved you indelibly on the palms of his hands so that He cannot open his eyes without seeing you.  He does not move his hands without being conscious of you.  He cannot and does not act without considering completely what it means for you.

God is not simply promising to think about you.  He proclaims the impossibility of any absence of Him from your life -- ever! 

Even the most committed people lapse in memory and slip.  A friend of mine from a very large family recalls watching from an upstairs window his family drive away from St. Louis, MO for a Thanksgiving holiday in Springfield, IL.  They completely forgot Peter.  Eventually neighbors were called to collect him.

But no such "home alone" moment is even possible for you where God is concerned.  There will never be an omission of His grace, protection, love, providence, understanding, generosity, goodwill, or compassion for you. 

How do you know?

Is there a marble monument someplace that can't be eroded by time, wind or sand? 

No. 

Is there an oracle which may be consulted to double check that somehow your name hasn't accidentally been misfiled in the heavenly records?

No.

Is there a scrap book or some kind of memorabilia that will survive to commend us before God?

No.

There is something infinitely better.  There is the testament of Christ's own flesh.  His own body carries the memory of those He died to save.  Nails in the palm of his hands, yet visible today, engraved the devotion He gave for you and me.  The real body and blood of the sacrament is not a celebration of the dead but of the living.  Holy Communion is not a tribute to Jesus or a symbol of things merely remembered as happening at Calvary. 

Holy Communion is the living Christ Himself.  It is all of Him. 

There the bread and wine are Christ, not merely to remember Jesus but to receive Him in all His fullness.  In Holy Communion we don't just recollect the sacrifice Christ gave.  We receive the Giver of that sacrifice into our very bodies.

"Do this in remembrance of me" isn't simply mental. For the church it is essential, that is, of our very essence.  The church remembers Christ inside our own flesh.  We remember Him in the depth of our guts.  We know Him completely, and His blood now flows through the very marrow of our bones.

Someday, a funeral director is likely to lay a wreath upon your resting place.  Perhaps a stone will temporarily mark the place where you await the resurrection.  An inscription will tell who lies beneath.

But you, dear Christian, will rest in peace because of the certainty that the Lord will never, ever, ever, forget you.  Even though ages pass, and the memory of the world fades away, you are engraved on the palm of His hands.  And even if a mother should forget her suckling child, God in Christ will never forget you.