The Importance of Remembering
We all need reminders. We stick Post-it notes on the fridge, scribble words on our hands in ballpoint pen, even perhaps tie knots in the corners of handkerchiefs. My home is littered with lists my wife has written on scraps of paper. They’re her way of ordering her life.
We sometimes talk of people “forgetting themselves” when they fail to act in a way befitting their roles. Once when I was playing soccer for my school team, and my sports teacher was supposed to be refereeing the match with all due impartiality, he “forgot” himself. In his frustration with us, he forgot his role as a referee and started acting like a coach, barking out instructions.
But remembering matters not just because appointments might be missed, tasks left undone, or roles forgotten. Many of our towns have war memorials or statues to commemorate those who gave their lives in the two world wars. Often they list the people from the local area who died or served during the war.
A memorial is a particular kind of reminder, a reminder in permanent, physical form. We create these reminders because we do not want to fail in our obligation to honor the dead. We want to maintain their legacy.
REMEMBERING INVOLVES RELIVING THE STORY
Remembering is important. Our shared stories give us our identity and shape the way we live. That is true of any family, community, or nation. And it is especially true for God’s people. Psalm 105 begins:
Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples!
Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works!
Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!Seek the Lord and his strength;
seek his presence continually! (vv. 1–4)
There are ten commands in these verses (shown here in italics) encompassing worship, evangelism, allegiance, trust, communion—all of the Christian life is here. But how are we to fulfill these commands? The answer is through one final command: Remember. The psalmist continues:
Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,
O offspring of Abraham, his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones!He is the Lord our God;
his judgments are in all the earth. (vv. 5–7)
What we do for God flows out of what he has done to us. The calls to praise and proclaim in verse 1 flow from “the wondrous works that he has done” in verse 5.
Obedience falters when memory fails.
The prophet Micah brings a lawsuit on behalf of God against God’s people. “The Lord has an indictment against his people,” he says (Mic. 6:2). The problem is that the people regard God’s rule as a burden. What is God’s exhortation? Remember.
O my people, remember . . .
what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord. (Mic. 6:5)
If they will only remember all that God has done for them, then they will gladly live as his people without grumbling.
The apostle Peter makes the same point. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,” he tells his readers. Peter starts with what God has said and done, then adds, “by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises” (2 Pet. 1:3–4). Only then does he exhort us to “make every effort” to add to our faith goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love (2 Pet. 1:5–7).
What is the problem when people do not grow in these virtues? Memory failure! “For whoever lacks these qualities,” says Peter, “is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins” (2 Pet. 1:9). What is the solution? Reminders. “Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities,” he says. “I think it right . . . to stir you up by way of reminder. . . . And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things” (2 Pet. 1:12–15) Three times Peter describes his task as reminding God’s people.
THE NEED FOR REMINDERS
The primary way we are to encourage, counsel, and exhort one another is through reminding one another of the gospel. Of course, there are times when Christians, especially new Christians, must be taught truths they did not previously know. But most of the time what we need to hear is “the old, old story of Jesus and his love.”[1] This is what preachers must offer in their preaching, counselors must offer in their counsel, and friends must offer in their conversations. And this is what Christ offers in the Lord’s Supper.
We need reminders. And so throughout the Bible story God gives his people reminders. Sometimes those reminders take the form of physical memorials. When God parted the Jordan River so his people could enter the promised land, he told them to take twelve stones from the river bed to create “a sign among you . . . a memorial forever” (Josh. 4:6–7). When God delivered Israel from the Philistines, “Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, ‘Till now the Lord has helped us’” (1 Sam. 7:12).
Sometimes those reminders take the form of rites or rituals, like how God instituted the Passover festival to remind the people of the exodus. “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” (Ex. 12:14). It was not a memorial that the people would see; it was a memorial that people would do—a memorial that takes the form of a meal.
God even wove reminders into the fabric of the clothing of the Israelites by telling them to add tassels to the corners of their garments: “And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after” (Num. 15:39).
MONUMENTS AND MEMORIALS
It may be that you want to create your own memorials— physical objects or family rituals—that remind you of God’s work in your life. You might write a note in your Bible or use festivals like New Year’s Day or Thanksgiving to remember God’s work in your life. But the memorials that are given collectively to new covenant believers are baptism and Communion.
Some people have dramatic conversion stories. They can name the day, even the moment, when they passed from death to life. But for many of us it felt more gradual and we cannot name the day. Perhaps you grew up in a Christian home and have always believed; perhaps it felt like the truth of the gospel dawned on you over a period of time. But for all us God’s promise of salvation took physical form in our baptism. Baptism marks a moment we can look back to—a moment we can remember when God’s grace came to us in the form of a promise to which we can now respond with faith.
Likewise, Communion is a regular reminder of all that God has done for us in Christ. Communion is more than a memorial. Remembering is not the only thing that is happening, and in fact the call to remember is not mentioned in Matthew and Mark’s account of the Last Supper. Nevertheless, Communion is certainly not less than a memorial.
Remembering is a central element in the Lord’s Supper. After all, Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24–25). Perhaps it should have been enough for God simply to tell us what he had done. Perhaps it should be enough for us simply to exhort one another to remember God’s grace.
But God in his kindness, knowing how frail we are, knowing how battered by life we can be, also gives us physical reminders of his grace in water, bread, and wine.
[1] From the hymn by Katherine Hankey, “Tell Me the Old, Old Story of Jesus and His Love” (1866).
Content taken from Truth We Can Touch by Tim Chester, ©2020. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, crossway.org.
Tim Chester (Ph.D., University of Wales) is a faculty member of Crosslands and a pastor with Grace Church, Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire. He is an author or coauthor of over forty books, including A Meal with Jesus; Reforming Joy; and, with Michael Reeves, Why the Reformation Still Matters.