If you’re following along in the One Year Bible, you know that our readings this week take us through the account of the great exodus from Egypt. Today’s text starts with these words:
“You must remember this day forever. Each year you will celebrate it as a special festival to the LORD.” – Exodus 12:14
“You must remember this day forever.”
Why is the act of remembering so important to our journey? Think about it. If you’re married, each year you celebrate the anniversary of your marriage. If you’re on LinkedIn, your work anniversary reminder pops up and you are asked to remember it along with all your LinkedIn Colleagues. Each year, we celebrate our birth days. Even Facebook pops up reminders for special events and occurrences. And when someone close to us in our lives dies, we begin to mark time by their death. (It’s been three Christmases since grandma died). It’s how we remember.
In other words, “don’t forget.” Don’t forget that you were born and that you are alive and that you are experiencing life.
Don’t forget that on this date you committed yourself to the love of your life and said, “I do.”
Don’t forget that this friend walked into your life on this date.
Don’t forget!
Remembering, even the painful events in our life, is important because it reminds of us of where we’ve been and where we’re going. It is all part of the fabric of our lives. I remember one visitor in church telling me, “I’m here and I brought me with me.” In other words, all that I am (everything; my hopes, my dreams, my faults, my failures, my endings, my past, my present and all my beginnings and endings) is part of who I am and I bring all of that with me.
In our text, the Children of Israel are about to make the great exodus from the oppressive hand of the Egyptian Pharaoh. The event is about to occur and God says, “You must remember this day forever.”
Why? Because on those days when life gets tough and you’re journeying through the wilderness, it will be necessary to remember that the LORD rescued you and brought you out. Because on those days when life is good and you start to think that you’re all that, it is important to remember that it not we who have made ourselves, but it is God. Because in those moments when we slide in next to a friend who is facing a struggle, we can say with assurance, let me tell you of a time when I was in a similar situation and God rescued me. (I remember when…)
“You must remember this day forever.”
Remembering is important. It is pulling the threads of all the fabric of our lives into this moment and realizing that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that we are part of God’s creation, and all that has occurred in our live has brought us to this moment. And here in this moment, we remember, and we rejoice.