Remembering
Our capacity to remember is an essential element of life. Being a successful life learning human can be attributed to how well we can remember the things that happen to us.
“I’ll be careful the next time I’m eating a jam sandwich when there are wasps around.”
“The dentist’s larger drill is not an object I’m comfortable with in my mouth, I will drink less fizzy pop”
We learn through remembering. We can experience great joy later in life from fleeting events, if we can just hold them in our memory. First kisses and awesome sunsets can be re-visited. Life’s great moments can last as long as you like if you can bring them to mind again. Which is why any illness of the mind is so painful. It’s more than just a momentary annoyance, it’s like life’s joys and skills are stolen away. Wisdom gleaned and moments treasured are robbed.
Our memories are life shaping, what we hold on to and where we choose to hold it in our minds shapes the kind of people we are.
Early in the story of Joshua the Hebrew nation faced an insurmountable obstacle. A huge river halted their progress to the Promised Land. There was no way across. It was a moment they were never to forget. At God’s instruction, the Ark of the Covenant was carried into the river by the Levite Priests. The flow of the Jordan River stopped. Then at God’s instruction the people walked across. It was a miracle of his provision. Then, at God’s instruction once more, 12 people, one for each Hebrew tribe pulled out a large stone from the river bed and placed it on dry land as a memorial to the event. For years to come this people could and would face troubles with confidence as they returned to this memorial and remembered what God had done. Generation after generation could face the future because of what they could remember of their past. How they got through the barrier not by their efforts, but by Gods power. The road back to these stones would be well worn.
For those interested, there is an insight here, related to God and faith. God does act to miraculously save people, but he doesn’t do it all the time. When he does, he makes a point of telling people to remember. That’s what he’s like. So faith, amongst other things, is about remembering. About what you choose to remember and where you choose to place it in your memory bank.
Sometimes if we’re honest, life can be tough. The obstacles to Christian life, or any kind of life, are big and seem insurmountable. Our faith can feel weak and God distant. Sometimes the things we place at the front of our memory bank, the stuff we hold on to, don’t bring God any closer.
When we take communion together we are not just filling the church diary with activity, we are continuing to remember, to hold on.
So we can keep going, so we can face the future. The bread and wine we take to remember the cross remind us of what God has done, the barrier he crossed that we couldn’t, the future we have that we didn’t.
Join with us on the first Tuesday or third Sunday in the month to remember together. On Tuesdays we are a bit quieter, we reflect, give stuff time to sink in or to be prayed through. It’s a shorter service. We’re reading through Hebrews as we go. For about 15 minutes at the start we’re thinking about how some of the huge majestic truths about Christ lead to some earthy realities for his people. It’s a bit like how Plato would sound if he worked down the pit, huge beautiful thinking meets real life. Where the theology hits the coal face. Where we read about Christ’s all sufficient work and how we need to ‘hang on’ or ‘be careful’ or just ‘keep going’. We remember well so we really live. We look back to move forward.
Remember with us.
Ash Gibson, Assistant Pastor, Christchurch Xscape
