I am convinced that we don’t think as much about memory as we should. My guess is that it has been a long time since any of us thought actively about what it means to remember something, or how or why we should purposefully preserve a specific memory. We take our memories for granted; or, at least we do until they fail us!
The reason why I am convinced that we don’t think enough about memory is because, in the Bible, God tells his people to preserve memories pretty regularly, and he frequently tells them to do or build something as a means of preserving the memory. Setting up groups of stones, meals with specific ingredients, liturgical recitations, weird clothing—the list of ways He commands his people to remember specific moments is fascinating!
Our concept of memory itself is pretty thin. For us, a memory is just something in the mind—it is purely mental. The biblical concept of memory is a lot thicker; it is not just in the mind, but instead is more like the past invading the present, or perhaps the people in the present going back to re-enter the past. That’s why memory is so regularly tied to God showing back up with his people, or the people going back to God. Memory changes things; it brings God and man back together. That is why the psalms are so full of people saying, “I remember when you saved us before!” They are demanding that God show back up, in the present. When God “remembered” his people at the beginning of Exodus, it wasn’t just a mental note! It meant that he was returning to deliver them from slavery. Memory means reengagement, it means presence, it means activity. Most of all, it means salvation brought into the present. When Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper, “Do this in remembrance of me,” he was not talking about something that remained in the mind. He was talking about actually re-entering that moment when he offered his life to us to deliver us from slavery and bind us to God in a new covenant. Memory changes things, because in it, we return to God and he turns his face upon us.
All of this is why we take such care to remember the final week of Jesus’ life. We re-enact that most important week—each of the critical actions of Jesus at the time of his crucifixion and resurrection—so that we can re-enter them to encounter God. In actively remembering, we expect God to turn his face upon us and meet us with his grace. This is not just a mental activity, but involves liturgical actions and words, weird clothing, peculiar meals, candles lit at key moments—all things that might seem a bit odd unless we realize that we need specific ways to remember and re-enter God’s acts of salvation. In doing so, we expect him to meet us with his grace, and draw us onward into our journey into his own heart, our true homeland.
Join us for these acts of remembrance!
In Christ,
Steven+
Scripture Reflections
Our appointed Psalm for this Sunday is Psalm 126. I think it’s one of the most beautiful of the Psalms of Ascent; we might be 2500 years away from its context, but it has barbs that still catch the heart and won’t let go.
The most intuitive reading of the Psalm situates it after Israel’s restoration from exile. Yet it also shows that restoration is incomplete. The LORD has “overturned the captivity of Zion,” but there is still a plea for that captivity to be overturned still more. Israel was still suffering after the exile. Partially restored to a land turned fallow, where the city walls and the temple were crumbled heaps, sorrow still lay ahead of them.
There is a beautiful, but hard, picture of the Christian life there. I think most of us can look back and sing verse one with words from our own experience:
When the LORD
overturned my addiction
lifted my depression
healed a terrible disease
provided in abundance
restored my marriage
It was like living in a dream.
Then was my mouth filled with laughter
and my tongue with shouts of joy.
But we also live with verse 5 still on our lips. There is still brokenness ahead of us that only the LORD can restore. The Christian life still takes endurance, because God’s work is not yet finished. That sort of resilience doesn’t come from our own strength. It flows from faith; we have to join Israel in hanging our hopes on the One who always keeps His promises.
The Psalm ends with a comfort that is simple but profound. “Those who sow in tears shall reap with songs of joy.” In God’s covenant land, sorrow is the soil where good seeds flourish. In other words the pain behind you and the darkness before you will be fertilizers for your joy. You will have MORE joy, not less, because he will redeem them.
This is not because God likes suffering, or because he thinks it is good. It’s also not because “everything will work out in the end” and “it’s not that bad, really.” It’s true because God promised it for his people, and because Jesus bolted that promise to himself when he laid aside his glory and walked into darkness and death before us. He doesn’t like your suffering, so he suffered to redeem it for you.
God isn’t asking you to look for more suffering, or to cling to it or nurture it. He’s not asking you to hide it away either. He’s promising something much better. He will meet you in it with a plentiful harvest of joy. The LORD has done great things for us, and what is coming is greater still.
Justin+
Scripture Reflections
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life. (Prov. 13:12)
A friend shared this verse with me recently, in response to my fears and weariness regarding our housing situation and the process of learning Kazakh. It was the first part of the verse that hit home with me initially—it was a true diagnosis of my heart. But now I am struck even more by the second part of the verse: “A desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” We know who the Tree of Life is, and He has even called us to abide in him as his branches (Jn. 15:5)! We know—or ought to know—where to go when hope is deferred, when we have unfulfilled desires. And yet we so easily forget. We even hesitate to allow him, his presence with us, to be the fulfillment of our desire. After all, we truly feel the need of whatever it is we are desiring—a stable, rooted home; success in our endeavors; clarity for the future. Do we trust our Father to remember what we need if we rest in him and stop grumbling to him? Can we, with Jesus, sleep in the boat in the middle of the storm (Matt. 8:24)?
Over the last few weeks, the Lord has used a line from the Ash Wednesday litany to convict me particularly of this lack of trust:
For our self-pity and impatience, and our envy of those we think more fortunate than ourselves;
Lord have mercy upon us: For we have sinned against you.
Our family is listening to Bach’s oratorio of Saint Matthew’s Passion for the first time this Lent. Bach set to music passages from the Last Supper to the resurrection, along with prayerful reflections on what is happening. The oratorio opens with a chorus:
Come, you daughters, help me wail!
Look! Whom? The Bridegroom.
Look at him! How? He’s like a lamb!
Look! What? See his patience.
Look! Where? At our guilt.
See him, in love and grace
He’s carrying the wooden cross himself!
“Look! What? See his patience.” The Lord used this line to give me a charge as we wait for Easter this year, which for our family is also a time of waiting for the provision of a long-term home here in Kazakhstan and anxiously anticipating language evaluations, where Asher and I will find out the results of the study we’ve put in over the last two and a half years. Impatience is a strong temptation, even though there’s clearly no hope there. Impatience with the housing process leads me to despair, to believing we will never be settled. Impatience with language learning also leads to despair—I’d rather quit and not sit for the evaluation than hear that I’ve learned as little as I feel I have. But where I would in my own nature fight the temptation to impatience by working hard to drum up patience and trust, the Lord has given me this charge: look at Jesus, see his patience.
When Jesus told the parable of the fig tree in the reading from Luke 13 this past Sunday, he told it differently than he does his other parables. He left us hanging—what happened? Did the fig tree bear fruit? Did the vinedresser see fruit from his patience and care? And when Jesus healed the bent woman, he also went about her healing differently than he did with others. He saw her, he called her over, he spoke words of release and healing, he laid his hands on her. She was as unable to affect her own healing or even to ask for it as the fig tree was to bear fruit. But she responds: she comes to Jesus when he calls her, she hears his voice, she does not shrink from his touch, and she receives the healing offered—she is made straight, and glorifies God! You and I are also bent and in bondage, but perhaps we don’t see the particular sin or disability the Lord would heal us from, or we may be too weary and sick at heart to hope for healing. Do you hear Jesus calling you? Go to him in prayer, in his Word, and in his Church, and receive the sacraments of grace. He will speak peace and healing, he will lay his hands on you, and you will be made straight.
Hannah