To Remember...

"When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony.  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.'"
Exodus 12:26

To Remember...
By Rev. William Dohle

The year was 1994.  I had traveled to India for a semester to study community development.  On one of our breaks up north we went to that monument of monmments...the Taj Mahal!  Standing before it felt like a dream.  It looked like someone had moved a giant picture of the Taj Mahal in our way, like they do at theme parks.

But then I got to touch it.  Walking on the Taj Mahal, you have to take off your shoes before you step onto it.  So...I slipped off my sandals and let my bare feet touch the marble monument.  Then, while walking around it and talking pictures, I reached out my hands and touched it.  I closed my eyes.  "This is what the Taj Mahal feels like," I thought.  "You will never forget this moment!"

As we left and took pictures again from a distance, I looked at the monument which again looked like a cardboard cutout.  "I was there," I thought.  "I touched it's marble.  It's real!"

This rememberance is exactly what God is instructing his people on as they are leaving Egypt.  "Take a good look around," God says.  "You were here.  Here you were slaves.  Here I freed you from Egypt and claimed you as my own.  Remember!"

That remembrance was hard even for the generation that left.  Moses had to keep reminding them, over and over again, "Remember you were slaves in Egypt before God rescued you."

But to generations and generations to come, who knew nothing of slavery in Egypt nor of God's redemption, they needed some way to remember, to put themselves back in Egypt at least in their mind and remember that it was all for real.

That's what God's commandments concerning Passover provide.  A way to remember.

Listen as God instructs his people HOW to remember this event...

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household...Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs...For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast.  On the first day remove the yeast from your houses...Do no work at all on these days except to prepare food for everyone to eat...Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.  (Ex.12)


Even today, these commandments are followed as Jews everywhere celebrate and remember passover in the Sedar meal.

Christians too have ways to remember and place ourselves back at the time of redemption.  For Christians, that rememberance comes at communion when we hear Jesus say, "Do this in remembrance of me."  These words might not seem much, but they are just as much a command as the words God spoke to his people back in Egypt.  "Here is how you remember.  Here is where you return."

We return there and remember because these events are real.  They really happened...and they continue to happen.  In the sedar meal Jews remember that they were slaves in Egypt.  Not just their ancestors...but THEY were.  At Communion, we remember how the blood was shed for US...and how in Christ's blood WE are saved, just as his original disciples were.  In both cases, the remembrance we have brings us into the moment when God redeems us.

May we return to the altars of our lives to remember.  May we find ways to bring ourselves to this present moment, where God meets us.  And may we be transformed, for in remembering we are once again at the moment of salvation!

Help me remember, God, what you have done for me.  Give me ways to spark my memory that I may know that your love for me is real.  Amen.