remember ME!

When I travel back to my growing up place, Tullahoma, and hang out with my mama and daddy, their place is full of pictures. Pictures on every wall, pictures in frames that sit on coffee tables, end tables, pictures in every room of the house and yes, of course, on the refrigerator. The pictures span the years. Seeing my brother, Danny, in those black “buddy holly” style glasses. For the younger crowd…a scaled down version of Rayban wayfarer. Jumping forward a few years to seeing pictures of Danny in his Tullahoma High School baseball uniform and to the right of that carrying the same pose in a frame my grandfather made we see this fella folks called “B”. Yeppers that is me, then college baseball photos, cedar boxes with photo albums, blankets, tufts of hair…all screaming remember this! Remember what was going on here…. do you remember? And the answer for us most of the time is yes. Think about it for just a moment: When you start to cruise through memories and your eyes land on a shot…I hear these words often come from my mouth “Oh yeah, I remember that…. we were…” and the stories take off.

We love to capture moments, don’t we? Pictures, messages, video, bombard us through every screen our eyes land on these days and the common theme is LOOK AT ME! …or, I believe deeper down it’s an ache to a world saying “will you remember me?”…Jesus said “Do this in remembrance of me”…. if you are one who has walked in and out of several styles of worship barns (churches) whether you saw a plate with little Chiclet sizes of cracker come underneath your nose with an ever bigger plate holding a kazillion of those little plastic, thimble sized juice holders (always loved the smell of Welch’s grape juice:))…or if you participated in a style that had you go up front and take a piece of bread from a basket and dip the bread in a cup that one or two individuals were holding, you heard these words:

As often as you do this do this in remembrance of me.

Why did and does Jesus desire for us to remember HIM? And when we do, what is our remembrance? What if someone came up and asked, “Uh hey, why do you guys eat those crackers, bread and dip or sip that juice?” What does that mean for you…why are you supposed to remember? Uh who is it? Oh yeah Jesus…why?

What would your response be?

Would you be able to explain the importance of the cracker the bread representing Christ body? Or explain the significance that the cup, the thimble or juice represents Christ blood has for you and really mankind?

Why does this matter? Well if your world view includes one that has an after life then I’m pretty sure we would want to Remember the one who conquered death…that’s a tremendous “OH YEA do you remember”

2Ti 1:10 NLT 10 And now he has made all of this plain to us by the appearing of Christ Jesus, our Savior. He broke the power of death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the Good News.

So if the person asking has a desire to live forever without tears, pain, sorrow and death, then man oh man you get a wonderful opportunity to share this INCREDIBLE NEWS that through their yes to Jesus they will and can receive the promises that come through faith in Christ

I get now why back in the day, in the early going the Lords supper, the communion, the Eucharist was referred to as a Love Feast! Love never fails and there is no greater love displayed then through the empty tomb of Christ…who hours before told the boys…”as often as you do this do this in Remembrance of ME”…. not the times you run…don’t remember the “stuff” in your life that you think is separating you from me, don’t remember the words of anyone that is trying to shame or guilt you out of participating in this OPEN table…REMEMBER ME…remember my ONCE For ALL TIME sacrifice of my body (cracker, bread) and my blood (cup, thimble juice) that paid it all..

Heb 9:28 NLT 28 so also Christ died once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him.

Oh yeah!