I Remember When

It seemed to begin during the closing up of Quiet Rest. I am learning that it is becoming more and more difficult to pull information from my mind's filing cabinet.  There were times when I startled myself with the amount of information I carried about in my head. Not any more!  Has coming to depend on my vast directory of names and numbers I carry with me, for instant access on my smart phone, dulled my memory?  Map apps, the same?  I caught myself asking, the other day; "just text me the address," in order that I wouldn't have to think about where I was going.  Then, Bettyann knows me well enough that she, almost all the time now, texts me a reminder for most of my appointments. Hopefully, only thirty minutes or so ahead of time.  But, oddly, there are still those moments that some names, numbers, dates, zip codes, appointment dates and times that permeate my mind. Why?  Is it because I have deemed them so important that I want never to forget the number anymore than I would forget the person or things they represent? And, I've noticed that the significance moves well beyond the boldfaced digits themselves. Like the day of my marriage, the birth of my daughters, the death of my parents or a beloved friend, the various streets of houses where I grew up on, the number of times I failed before I finally passed the test.  The persons that have forgiven me the wrong toward them.

What has given rise to my rumination is reading the book of Esther in the Old Testament story of Mordecai and Queen Esther, wherein chapter nine, the people set themselves to remember the days when they received relief from their enemies, the month that had been turned “from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday.” And so it was determined: “These days of Purim should never cease to be celebrated by the Jews, nor should the memory of them die out among their descendants.” The days were weighted with enough hope to press upon them the need to remember them forever. More importantly, they saw the very certain possibility that they might forget.

There have been times, especially in the last year or so, when I have realized that I have always beheld the carving of a day into the great tree of history.  I look at the little carvings of Wood ducks in their tree nest, on our bedroom wall, and think of knowing, as the groom, from that 30th day of June, fifty years ago, forward, it would be difficult (and detrimental) to forget that day on the calendar. It would carry the force of forgetting so much more. I remember on my way to the hospital on the day my first grandchild was born; that day has come to be about to be something so much more. Like the day, when I was eight, my grandfather was buried. My remembering is more than a recollection of detail; it is the recollection of grandpa in all his person. 
   

With a similar sense of anticipation, God told the Israelites that they would remember the night of Passover before the night even happened. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast” Exodus 12:14. Moses and Aaron were given instructions to tell the whole community of Israel to choose a lamb without defect, slaughtering it at twilight. Then they were to take some of the blood and put it on the doorposts of the houses. “The blood will be a sign,” the LORD declared. “And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike the firstborns of Egypt.”

For a long time, I have known the significance of remembering is a theme carried throughout all of Scripture. But only recently have I realized with fulI weight that it is not about static facts or rules or figures, but the mystery of a place, the significance of a person, the marking of lives. Celebrating the Passover was nonnegotiable. The command to remember was passed down from generation to generation. But they were remembering more than the mere events of Israel’s exodus from Egypt; they were remembering God as the God showing up and changing them—the faithful hand that moved among them, the mighty acts which exclaim a Father’s untiring remembering of his people.

I can imagine the disciples sitting around the table celebrating their third Passover meal with Jesus, an observance they kept before they could walk, everything probably looking ceremoniously familiar. I smell of lamb filling the upper room; the unleavened bread prepared and waiting to be broken. Remembering again the acts of God in Egypt, the blood on the doorposts, the lives spared and brought out of slavery, I see them giving attention to their teacher as He lifted the bread from the table and gave thanks to God. Then Jesus broke the bread, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Powerful!

I have always wished that Luke would have described a little more of the scene that followed. Were the disciples hushed and confused? Did their years of envisioning the blood-marked doorposts cry out at the Lamb of God before them? They had spent their entire lives remembering the sovereignty of God in the events of the Passover, and then Jesus tells them that there is yet more to see in this day on the calendar: In this broken bread is the reflection of Me.

Father, God, thank You for engraving across history the promise of Passover: I still remember you. I still seek you. Amen