Lest We Forget
April 12, 2016
-by Rachel Jones
Exodus 19:7-11. Then the LORD said to Moses, ” I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.” When Moses has told the words of the people to the LORD, the LORD said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes and prepare for the third day, because on the third day the LORD will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.”
God knows we are forgetful people. One of the things I love most about the project Fifty Days of Fabulous is the express intent to remind us all of the joy of Easter, the whole season long, even after the Cadbury Eggs have disappeared from the Walgreens check out stand.
Forgetfulness has been a problem for us since the day we walked out of Eden. As soon as we were able, we began writing down our story, telling each other over and over about all we had seen, what we had learned, how we talk to and listen to God…or not.
We get together as often as we can to tell the story of God to each other, to tell the story of the Word made flesh in Jesus. And still, we forget about how Jesus talks and acts–sometimes we don’t even make it out of the church parking lot or the food bank or the meeting room or the bed before we forget. And so, we come to understand that we are obligated to remind each other of this gift of Jesus–of this beautiful story of God. Because when we forget about that story, about how God always shows up, right in our faces, because God knows we are forgetful…and stubborn…and willful…when we forget that story, we do terrible things to each other.
The only way we will walk by the fruit without taking a bite is if we remember to tell each other not to eat of it. The only way we will stop killing our brothers is to remember to tell each other that the very ground cries out with the blood of the innocent. When the rains come, we can be assured that the rainbow will come because we tell each other the story of God’s kept promise. God spoke to the children of Israel and established a consecrated community and every last person in the crowd told their children that story, and their children repeated it into the ears of their own beloved small ones.
And the story grew, and in the fullness of time, Jesus came to stand among us, to proclaim that death is dead, hell is vanquished, and all things are being made new, and we believe that story is worth telling, worth talking about, worth risking our lives and reputations as reasonable people over. It’s the greatest story we will ever know, the most wonderful story we will ever share. Thanks be to God for remembering us, for hearing our cries, for understanding and compensating for our forgetfulness…and for calling us to remember our best story.
When’s the last time you forgot something important? How did you forgive yourself? How did you make things right? Tweet us your thoughts at #50daysEaster, or #rememberingEaster
Oh my stars, thank you so much for this today; I’m delivering my very first sermon this Sunday and one of the key pieces is an exhortation for us to keep telling ourselves our story as an Easter people. This is perfectly in line with that. Mind if I yank some of your text for the sermon? I most certainly will credit it.