Why Remember Lot’s Wife?
Good Morning Friends,
People like to remember happy times and significant events. Memories are precious; they keep us connected to people, places, and events that have shaped us and influenced our lives. We may wish we could forget some things, but even life’s unpleasantries can offer lasting lessons learned through adversity. At the Last Supper Jesus shared a meal with His disciples and then led them in the ancient observance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread… Passover. Jesus, the Master Teacher, used this opportunity to plant an important memory in His disciples gathered in that upper room. Jesus shared this meal for their benefit and for ours. As Jesus raised the bread and the cup in thanksgiving, He added new significance to this ancient ritual. Luke records that Jesus told His disciples to observe the Passover “in remembrance of me.” Jesus took an old symbol and filled it with new meaning. Similarly, today we look at what, in some translations, is the second shortest verse in the Bible. We consider not the brevity of the passage but the deeper meaning of the event. Why Remember Lot’s Wife?
Scripture: Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulphur from heaven and destroyed all of them —it will be like that on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, anyone on the housetop who has belongings in the house must not come down to take them away; and likewise anyone in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it. I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left.’ Then they asked him, ‘Where, Lord?’ He said to them, ‘Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.’
Luke 17:26-37 (NRSV)
Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
Luke 22:19-20 (NRSV)
But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside the city. When they had brought them outside, they said, ‘Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.’
Genesis 19:16-17 (NRSV)
But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Genesis 19:26 (NRSV)
Message: When Jesus told His disciples to remember Lot’s wife, it comes as a surprising command, but if Jesus wanted to have his disciples to remember her, there must have been a good reason. The reason that it is so astounding is because this was the only person recorded in Scripture that Jesus ever told anyone to remember aside from himself. He did not tell them to remember Moses, or Abraham or Isaac, though he may have demonstrated it. We are told in scripture to remember the Sabbath but there was no specific request to remember any of the Judges or Prophets, or Kings, even though by the telling of stories Jesus helps us to do just that. Surly there is more to it than Jesus wanting his disciples to remember Lot’s wife because she started on a journey but did not make it. Maybe it is a moral warning and a directional command to not look back when God is in the process of offering us salvation. Interestingly Lot’s wife’s name is never given in the Bible. Like the Woman from Samaria at the well, no name is given. I think that by remembering her in a way that links the facts of her life to their impact on the present helps us to learn, but also becomes a holy moment, for Jesus had likened the disciples to salt. A literal interpretation of this saga only touches on the edges of its profound truth. For here the noun salt becomes a verb salt and the teaching of the Master continues. As Lot’s wife turned around, perhaps in loving concern for others, and took her eyes off the task at hand, she sinned against God’s command and she was turned into a block of salt…the representation of countless dried tears of those who have been lost. This seems too harsh a judgement, but then life is not fair is it. Perhaps friends, it is not just a remembering of facts but a remembering of them within the Covenants of God and our very emotions that engages God in the remembering of us. When life is not fair this might be the only thing that keeps us sane.
Pray with sorrow for those who are almost saved. Pray we realize that once we get started we cannot afford to look back. Pray we realize that what is done for the glory of God that lasts will be the memory that stays with us into our very salvation. Pray we realize that godly folk must sometimes flee from iniquity, when efforts to redeem fail. Pray we keep plowing forward and not look back even though we still remember what God redeems.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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