Remember is defined as: “To
have, to think of or to keep an image or idea in your mind of
(something or someone from the past). To cause something to come back
into your mind. To keep information in your mind: to not forget.”
In today’s society, there is nothing more important than
photos to record moments: so we remember (we are literally obsessed with
recording and recounting our memories with our phones and websites). Memorials, monuments, souvenirs, greeting cards, holidays,
birthdays, anniversaries, grocery lists, etc. We are constantly called to recall so we forget not. “Alexa remind me to take my medication at 10pm. Alexa
find my keys. Alexa find my phone.” From moments to decades - to remember is our line to live and legacy to leave. Aside from terminal diseases, there is little more devastating to a family than one losing memory; than being forgotten. So we are always creating memories; striving for the joyful and blocking the painful! Some are beautiful. Some are
horrible. Some are elating. Some are abusive. Some memories we hold constant;
some we constantly hold to the wind. All in all, if we are breathing, we are memorializing.
"Christmas" is a memorial. "Easter" is a memorial. Passover and
6 other Feasts are memorials. Communion consumption (pieces of Passover) is a
memorial. In fact, we read that He tells us to “do in Remembrance of Me.” A
couple of years ago, a pastor in Jacksonville, Florida was holding a
Passover/Good Friday service. As the bread was being broken and prayed over in
Hebrew by Paul Wilbur, Pastor Stovall Weems describes being placed into a
Vision. What he describes is absolutely astounding. In short, he describes a
second voice speaking in Hebrew right along with Paul. Then, he describes, hearing Yeshua as the one speaking in Hebrew. He never saw His face, but he did see Yeshua, literally there on the platform, seated at the Passover table! Stovall wasn’t remembering the past;
he was experiencing the present. Later, as He was processing this amazing
encounter, he asked the Lord “what was the purpose of this Vision?” (Everyone
I’ve read of in Scripture and personally known to see a vision has the same
response: there was a purpose for others). His answer was simply His scripture:
Remember Me.
The purpose of Passover is to remember an event that we
never witnessed. He goes further and calls us to remember a baby in a feeding
trough or a bloody man on a wood plank that we’ve never laid eyes on. So I wonder: if we never
physically experienced “Me,” do we conjure images of the event to recall? He
knows we weren’t there to see and certainly not of mind to recall, but His
directive is clear: Remember Me. So who or what do we “remember?” Is
remembering all in the mind recalling events or experiences of the past; if so,
how do we remember if we never physically experienced them? Yes, through His Word, we
recall the events we read of and He is His Word. But I feel that Remember
ME is so much more. More like experiencing Who He IS in the present with
the living, breathing Word and Spirit. To be one in mind with the One who is as
Present for me now as He was them for then. He
is far more than an image of a past we've never personally seen. He is
part of the past, but more so, He is the Present. Albeit unseen, but not
unknown.
There is difference
between “recall” and “remember” – Stovall’s encounter was key for me in seeing the distinction. We are
not called to “recall Him,” we are called to Remember Me: experience me in the
Present moment. Breaking bread and blessing in the very air you breathe. Stovall said one of the most powerful revelations in that moment, as he stared at the
bread in his hand, was that Jesus Himself served him that bread. Jesus Himself
was speaking blessing over the very ears in the room who received. Jesus
Himself is with us. Not as a reminder, but as He is. Reminders move us to
recall; He moves us to Remember. However the moment or the season - Christmas or Crisis. Don't try to invoke an image or a memory you never experienced; remember to invite a Messiah who is already intimately in your experiences.
