A Strategy for Remembrance

It is so good to be able to remember. We can deal with old issues that resurface by using what we learned from before even for coping with new matters that come up. But we can also forget, and that benefits us too. Less useful experiences fade and disappear so they do not clog up our conscious thinking now. Negative times lose their edge, and experiences like pain we cannot “remember” at all—only that they happened.

So we need a strategy for staying conscious of important issues—like connection with God through Christ. Once in life our baptism marks who we are. Once a year Resurrection Sunday serves as a Christian Memorial Day celebrated near the time of the ancient Passover that foreshadowed the death of Jesus. More frequently, this communion time refreshes our “remembrance of him” in whose name we gather regularly (1 Corinthians 16:1 + 11:20).

Keeping the truth fresh in mind calls for assistance lest distractions like birds in the parable steal away the seed, lest shallow soil fails to sustain what began so well, lest the weeds and thistles of life choke out what faith could produce.

Setting aside inviolable times for this specific matter safeguards against forgetting. We do something together, something that draws us into the center of the faith we have in common, something that can seep outward into all the aspects that connect to that central fact.

We appreciate it when people think about us, talk to us, take time to come to see us. The Lord appreciates those things too because he created us to be like him. Wanting us to do this with him (Matthew 26:29b) creates good memories for us all till seeing him at his return replaces those memories of his dying here so long ago.