In Remembrance

The importance of Remembering

Last week we talked about the two ancient celebrations of Passover and Pentecost. We talked about how God instituted these two yearly festivals way back during the exodus story and how he renewed and refreshed these two ancient celebrations. Passover was now tied to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and Pentecost was now tied to the giving of the Holy Spirit. God took these two yearly celebrations and instead of replacing them, he added to them. The goal was that they would both still continue to be celebrated every year, but now moving forward they would have this extra layer of meaning to them.

And so it seemed fitting on this MEMORIAL DAY weekend, that we lean in a bit further to the importance of Remembering. I wanted us to go back and read the initial instruction that God gives to Moses regarding Passover while they were still slaves in Egypt. Let’s stand as we read this passage together.

Exodus 13:3–10 (NIV)

Then Moses said to the people, “Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the Lord brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast. Today, in the month of Aviv, you are leaving. When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites—the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you are to observe this ceremony in this month: For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the Lord. Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders. On that day tell your son, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips. For the Lord brought you out of Egypt with his mighty hand. You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time year after year.

Just to recap and make sure we are all on the same page. The Descendants of Abraham have been in Egypt for roughly 400 years at this point and for the past few decades the Egyptians have been treating the Israelites rather harshly. Forcing them to make bricks, killing their male sons, and generally making their life miserable. So they cry out to God for help and what precedes our passage this morning is a series of showdowns, of plagues, that try to convince Pharoah to let the people of Israel go free. NINE TIMES there are these powerful works of God over creation and nine times Pharoah refuses to let them go. So this passage we just read is BEFORE the actual Passover event. God is giving moses the instructions to get the Israelites ready for what is about to happen. Three things jump out at me when I read this story about the tenth and final plague. The first is that God tells the Israelites what is to come and then the Israelites have the opportunity to believe, obey, respond and be spared, or ignore the instructions of God and they will suffer the same fate as the Egyptians.

Think about that for a minute. God tells the Israelites, that destruction is coming in the form of the Angel of Death, and all the first born sons in every household will be killed, the only way to be spared is to follow the instructions God gives - there is an act of faith, and obedience in order to be saved. Exodus 12:13

Exodus 12:13 NIV

The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

This is GOD we are talking about. He already knows who we are and who is who. He doesn’t NEED the sign of blood for HIS sake so that he doesn't get confused about who is an Egyptian and who is an Israelite. HE ALREADY KNOWS, HE IS GOD! Instead it is an act of Obedience, a sign that we truly are HIS people not just by our ethnicity or our heritage, but by our acts of Faith and Obedience.

The second thing I notice, is that God KNOWS how big of a deal this is going to be before it even happens. In Chapter 12, BEFORE the actual Passoever event has even happened.. God tells them to celebrate what is about to happen for generations! Exodus 12:14

Exodus 12:14 NIV

“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.

Even before God had freed the Israelites, he was already telling them to celebrate what was about to happen for generations to come. God is setting the table, so to speak, for what he is about to do, and making sure the people are ready to see the power of God on full display and when they do, they should REMEMBER it every year!

This also sounds a lot like what Jesus did during the Last supper. BEFORE his body was broken and blood was shed, he tells the disciples in Luke 22 19

Luke 22:19 NIV

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

Basically saying, PAY ATTENTION what is about to happen is HUGE and you are going to want to celebrate and commemorate this major event every year. DO NOT FORGET what is about to happen!

This isn’t a surprise where people might have missed the powerful work of GOD. No both times God gives FULL WARNING and says, basically, this is going to be HUGE, make sure you are paying attention and make sure you REMEMBER what is about to happen.

The third thing I notice from the exodus story is how important it is that we pass along this story to the next generation.

This isn’t just something for the Israelites who experienced it to remember and celebrate, but it is important for even those who DID NOT experience it, or who were not old enough to appreciate what was happening to ALSO REMEMBER and celebrate.

Exodus 12:26–27 NIV

And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’ ” Then the people bowed down and worshiped.

I think this is HUGE and something we don’t often do a good enough job at! It is VERY important that those of us who lived through major moments, remember them, honor them, use them to shape and inform how we see the world.

For the Israelites, this huge act of God, stepping in with a Mighty and Powerful hand, to strike down their enemy and free them from a life of bondage, suffering and persecution, would be a MAJOR building block for how they understood their own identity as people and as a nation.

This moment in time, showed them, that they have an incredibly powerful God ON THIER SIDE, WHO WOULD FIGHT FOR THEM! This should give them confidence in the face of other Gods.

They have a GOD who HEARS THEM AND RESPONDS TO THIER CRIES FOR HELP, this shows them that have value and serve a God who Cares for them.

I have heard it often said, that Jewish Rabbis come back to this moment often. When people are struggling, they ask - What is YOUR EGYPT, that God can free you from? They come back to this story as a REMINDER of, and EVIDENCE FOR Gods Abiity to hear our cries of suffering, and Free us from the burdens we face in life no matter how big they might seem. If God could free the Israelites from Egypt, from Pharoah, what CAN”T God do!!!!

There is HUGE VALUE in REMEMBERING!

I sometimes think that we as a Nation need to be REMINDED of the important events in our History. We are celebrating Memorial Day, and for many this is the launch of summer, and there are good sales going on, great food, family and those things are all fine, but sometimes I wonder if we have FORGOTTEN, what this day is really supposed to be about. We are supposed to REMEMBER, and honor not only the sacrifice that so many men and women made in laying down their life for our country, but also to remember WHY they were willing to do so? We believe that their sacrifice was in honor of a higher ordeal, of a belief that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, and these people died in defence of these rights. They died so that others might be free! We as a nation can’t forget that.

We need to continue to tell the stories of those who fought and died on behalf of our nation, and why so many people have had such pride in our nation for so long, in part because of those who have served and because of the freedoms those people sacrificed their lives for.

As a church, we are also remembering those who have been members here who have passed away this past year. We need to continue to remember them. To tell their stories, to share about who they were, the impact they made, the lives they lived and the influence they had on shaping us as people and as a church. I know I am who I am, in part because of the lives my 4 grandparents, all now deceased, lived. Their commitment to hard work, to faith, to family, to helping others, to service, they shaped our family legacy and that legacy impacts how I live my life. I need to make sure my kids know the stories of their great grandparents and those who came before them. They need to REMEMBER those who have come before and not to lose sight of all of the many ways God has blessed our families for generations in big and small ways. You too, need to make sure you continue to tell the stories of those who have passed away. I remember being at my Grandfathers funeral and people were telling stories about his life and there were so many stories that I had never heard before about the things he had done and the life he had lived and it made me see him in a whole new way. I wish I would have known those stories when he was alive. I think there is power in stories, power in our history, power in REMEMBERING those who have come before us, and the way GOD has been alive and at work in our families, our church, our nation and the world long before we came into this world.

I also think there is danger in forgetting!

Lets get back to our story in Exodus. Gods power is on full display, God frees the Israelites from Egypt, God takes them through this long Journey through the desert and finally they end up in the promised land. In the end of the book of Joshua, Joshua is preparing for the end of his life and he stands up before the nation of Israel and he gives this wonderful speech REMINDING the people ALL of the ways God has been faithful to them, starting all the way back with Abraham and showing them about how Faithful God has been in getting them to this point. He tells them to REMEMBER, and to choose who they will serve! Of course they all say, we will serve the Lord, but as the story changes over into the book of judges we see how quickly they FORGET about the goodness of God and get off track.

The simplest summary of the book of Judges is that the people of Israel FORGET about the goodness of God, get into trouble, suffer, experience misery and then REMEMBER GOD, CRY OUT FOR HELP AND GOD SHOWS UP TO HELP.

Judges 2:10–11 NIV

After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.

For a time, they continue to remember Gods goodness, but then a generation passes and they soon FORGET AGAIN, and wander off the path, find misery again and then in thier misery REMEMBER GOD AGAIN, CRY OUT FOR HELP AND GOT INTERVENES AGAIN,

Judges 3:7 NIV

The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.

This happens over and over and over again in the book of Judges

It is this sad frustrating cycle of remembrance and forgetting and God’s faithfullness through it all! It repeats over and over again. But it’s not just the book of judges this happens all throughout the Old Testament. People forget, wander from God, and suffer, and then they REMEMBER God, cry out for him and he restores and redeems them.

Even today… There seems to be this bad habit we have, of staying connected to God when he shows his mighty hand and helps us, frees us, redeems us, restores us, and cares for us, but then too soon we forget about the goodness, the power, the worthiness of God who deserves our full devotion and so we go off and seek other things instead of God. We take God for granted, we forget just how bad life apart from God really was, or we get lazy and complacent and we forget to take our relationship with God seriously and then life gets hard, messy, complicated and we REMEMBER, oh yeah, this is what life is like without God, I don’t like it, I am sorry God, please help me get back to you.

And so my challenge this morning is simple…. May we REMEMBER! May we remember those loved ones who passed away this past year, Remember the ways God used them to shape us, Remember the times God showed his faithfulness and power in their lives, and may we Remember the legacy they leave behind.

May we also remember those who paid the ultimate price and laid down their life for our country. May we Remember the reasons for which they died, and the principals on which this country was founded. May we not forget those who gave up so much for our freedom.

Most importantly, May we Remember the goodness, the faithfulness and the power of God. May we not Forget all that he has done for us as individuals, for us as families, for all that he has done for our church and our nation. May we not Forget that we are HIS people and he wants us to Remember, and to celebrate and to teach our kids and grandkids all about the mighty hand of God who is still at work in this world.

And so we prepare our hearts for communion, this ultimate act of Remembrance. May we never forget the mighty and powerful act of Jesus Christ, who humbled himself, died on a cross, shed his blood to pay the penalties of our sin and purchased our freedom from bondage to slavery and restored us into a right relationship with God. May we tell of his mighty act of salvation to our kids and grandkids, so that we too will know that we have a God who hears our cries, listens to our struggles, intervenes on our behalf and with a mighty hand redeems and restores us. May we always know the value we have, because of the price God was willing to pay for our freedom, and the purpose we have as his people. May we never forget what Jesus has done for us, and end up back in a place of loneliness misery and shame. Instead may we REMEMBER that faithfulness of God and the sacrifice of Jesus as we prepare out hearts for communion Amen!