What Do You Want To Remember?

What Do You Want To Remember?

Good Morning Friends,

We are now in Memorial Day Weekend, for the holiday has extended beyond just the one day when it was moved to a Monday. We celebrate it to remember those who died for our freedom. But in many ways as a culture we have forgotten its purpose. The ability to remember is a wonderful gift God has given us. In a flash we can be a child again recalling experiences both the wonderful and sad…the mundane and the amazing. But sometimes our memory fails us and sometimes we forget as individuals and as cultures. Unfortunately in some ways we have forgotten the practical memory of this holiday. You see even though it is not recognized as a religious holiday it does have obvious spiritual overtones. For every time we take communion we are part of a celebration of the Memorial of Christ. The parallel of our nation’s Memorial Day with the memorial day of Christ is clear. If fact every time we worship we are celebrating a memory and the hope of a memory. The clarity of the comparison however depends on the answer to one thing. What Do You Want To Remember?
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²⁴Scripture: and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for^* you. Do this in remembrance of me.’

1 Corinthians 11:24 (NRSV)

3Moses said to the people, ‘Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, because the Lord brought you out from there by strength of hand; no leavened bread shall be eaten.

Exodus 13:3 (NRSV)

²³‘O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book!²⁴ O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock for ever! ²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer^* lives, and that at the last he^* will stand upon the earth;^*26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in^* my flesh I shall see God,^*27 whom I shall see on my side,^* and my eyes shall behold, and not another.  My heart faints within me!

Job 19:23-27 (NRSV)

⁸a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:8 (NRSV)

Message: It is a Holy activity to remember…to tell and write stories that link our story with His Story… with History… passing on knowledge from one generation to another on our journey into the Holy and out of bondage, realizing all the while that someday we will, each one of us die. So we tell stories that comfort us and wean us from the concept that we are in control. We tell our stories of how we have learned that our redeemer lives. These are not trivial anecdotes or mindless twitter, but a remembrance of our process of salvation. We are to remember the when…. the where…. and the why of our salvation. We are to describe what our life was like before and after. We should remember our vows along the way as well because they too are meant to be sacred. We should remember those who have died for our freedom. Yes there must be a special place for the memories we have of our parents and of heroes that have served the cause and died. We are to remember the roots of our faith, the great writings of the ages. We are to sing the old hymns as well as the new and especially we are to read the Bible. But in all this reminiscence, this sharing, there is nothing more important than to embrace that inspiration, that transformation of our life, from turmoil to transcendence in the experience of remembering our Lord and that joy of believing that someday we will be renewed with a new body, a new mind, a new home and a new beginning and that the experience today and into the eternal will be written in the great book of life and for us all. This Memorial Day Weekend as summer approaches, remember your Savior and His Memorial. Mourn the loss of the body of Christ. Remember the life of Jesus. Be thankful for His sacrifice. Remember how we have been saved. Remember the truths we have learned in the hope of the time we will share in the best memory of all… 

Pray we mourn the loss of those who have fallen. Pray we remember the lives of those who have fought for our freedom. Pray we are thankful for the Sacrifice. Pray we not forget what God has done for us. Pray we remember Christ in communion and in culture. Pray our memory is jogged in the seeing of a rainbow and the opening of a door and the crossing of a river and the shouting of stones and the sharing of a meal. Pray we remember, but also share the memory of the many blessings in our life and especially the memory of the blessing of Jesus. Pray we remember the Passover. Pray we remember the Sabbath. Pray we remember Jesus in the breaking of bread…the body broken for us and the blood of our salvation. Pray when faced with the guilt, fear, anger and worry of war we not forget the hope of love in the presence of the Prince of Peace.

Blessings,

John Lawson