Giving Thanks when Remembering
Giving Thanks when Remembering
(and remembering to be thankful))
Our ability to remember is truly a gift of God’s creation. Our brains have somewhere between 100 billion and 200 billion neurons each connecting to over a thousand other neurons which allows memories to form. Two forms of memory and memory formation that we are all familiar with are short term and long-term memory.
For those of us who have lived multiple decades, short term memory is not always as keen as it was, (have you ever walked into a room with great purpose, and once you get in the room you have no clue why you are there). Or even more a common experience, “where did I leave the keys to the car”. Memory blanks (sometimes referred to as a “senior moment” also happens when you see someone in a different context . . . you know you know them, but for the life of you, you don’t can’t remember their name.
We all have these experiences at some point. This past week I had a very embarrassing experience.
New keyless cars are a great invention. Touch the handle and the car unlocks, touch the starter button and the car starts. The only thing you have to think about is having the key fob in your pocket.
If you happen to forget to put the key fob in your pocket, the car won’t start so you rush back into the house and get the fob . . . no problem. However, if your wife has a key fob in her purse and gets into the car first . . . .I think you know where I am going with this. We drove to Kingston and I dropped Barb off at her appointment and then I drove to Bulk Barn about 1 Km away, got out of the car, touched the handle to lock it . .. and, oh oh, it wouldn’t lock and obviously would not start . . .no fob in my pocket, it had only started that morning because Barb’s key fob was in her purse. I had to walk back to the clinic and to get Barb’s fob and walked back to the car.
It is said when you get to retirement age, it is your golden years . . .well from my experience, there is just a little bit of tarnish that forms over time and the gold does not have quite the lustre that it had in years past.
Pictures are a great way of bringing memories back. A friend of ours has a habit of forwarding emails that remind us of what life was like back 60-70 years ago.
This picture came recently along with others . . . and it brought back memories of playing road hockey. And yes I do remember playing road hockey and someone shouting “car”. There is a certain nostalgia when thinking about the “good times in the past”
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But it’s remarkable, even at our age, how much of our history is still imbedded in our brains and we are able to retrieve experiences and facts that belong to a much earlier part of our lives.
I have enjoyed our coffee hour after church getting to know the other members of the congregation. And often the conversations will be around some of the memories of each of our lives. Who would have known that John Roy played hockey on the same rink with Jean Belliveau. I was interested oin finding out that Barbara McBride and her husband were known for making clocks including grandfather clocks. It is the sharing of these memories that help us connect with others in a deeper way.
If we think about it, we can remember times when we were aware that God had intervened in our lives in a particular way. Whether it was from an answer to prayer, or a sense that the change in our circumstances had God’s fingerprint on it, or going through a difficult time and knowing that you were held up by God’s grace, it was like the caption on this slide . . .I know that this was you God.
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The Old Testament describes how the children of Israel found ways (actually were instructed) to remember and commemorate special times where they experienced God’s intervention in their lives and in their nation.
Jewish settlement in ancient Egypt first occurs when Joseph, moves his family there during a severe famine in their homeland of Canaan.
For many years the Israelites lived in harmony in the province of Goshen, but as their population grows the Egyptians begin to see them as a threat. After the death of Joseph and his brothers, a particularly hostile pharaoh orders their enslavement and the systematic drowning of their firstborn sons in the Nile. We remember the story of how Moses was saved by being put in a basket in the river and eventually found and adopted.
While the Israelites were still slaves in Egypt, God sent 10 plagues to convince Pharaoh that he needed to release the Jewish people from their slavery. The tenth and final “convincer” was the death of the first born of all the Egyptian families. The Israelite families were required to place the blood of a lamb on their door posts to protect their first born from the death angel.
Reading from the account in Exodus chapter 12: 21-28
EXODUS 12_21-28
21 Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin.
23 . None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the
lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.
You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. 25 And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. 26 And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ 27 you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt,
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So Pharoah finally decided that it was in his and his people’s best interest to let the Israelites go . . . so Moses started them on the long Journey to the promised land. The whole story of this journey is one of God miraculously providing in many ways including being led by a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night.
It didn’t take long for the Egyptians to start complaining to the pharaoh that they missed having all the free labor . . . and so eventually the pharaoh recanted and started to pursue the fleeing Israelites. Riding horses and hundreds of chariots, The Egyptians started to catch up. When the Israelites got word that they were being pursued they had already come to the Red sea, and felt totally trapped.
The Red sea is a huge body of water currently surrounded by Egypt. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and some smaller countries. It is 1400 miles long and at it widest point it is 220 miles wide and places is 300 feet deep.
Our next slide will expand the circled area. The end of one large bay is where the Suez canal was built to create a passage to the Mediterranean sea. The Suez canal became a very heavily trafficked passage for cargo ships. I was only 13 in 1956 when Egypt unilaterally took possession of the Suez canal, creating a major Middle East Crisis. However, although it took place almost 70 years ago, it still a strong memory.
The other bay is where it is understood the Israelites crossed, the width being about 3 miles. Moses was instructed to raise his staff, and as he did so, the waters parted. Some say that a large wind came up from the East parting the waters.
How to take a throng of about 600 thousand men plus women and children across a sea bed . . . on dry land . . . was one of the most spectacular miracles of the Old Testament.
So the celebration of the Passover was established as a time to remember the “passing” over and sparing their first born, and the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The crossing of the Red Sea was the miracle that truly liberated the Jewish people. Each year, Passover is stll celebrated as a seven day period of remembering, and the story is retold again and again. All leavened food is removed from the household
A Prayer: First Day of Passover
We rejoice now in the memory of our deliverance from bondage, and we celebrate the goodness we have known through the ages. In this season of liberation, we celebrate the freedom to live without fear, the freedom to earn our daily bread, the freedom to speak our mind.
We praise You, our God, Giver of freedom, Source of life.
Black Screen
The celebration of Passover brings to mind another commemorative observance that we as Christian follow. Last week we celebrated Holy Communion which has been a part of the history of the church for centuries. Christ’s words at the last supper just before his crucifixion . .. as he broke bread were. . . “do this in remembrance of me.” It reminds us that the shedding of blood was what bought us our freedom and new life. We continue do this regularly throughout the year to remember Christ’s sacrifice.
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But the story of the Israelites does not end there. There were 40 years of wondering in the desert, Moses dies and Joshua is given leadership. Finally to reach the promised land, there was one more body of water to cross . . . the Jordan River. Once again God miraculously parted the waters and held the waters back to allow the Israelites to cross, again on dry ground.
Reading from Joshua 4: 2-7
When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 2 “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, 3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.” 4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to them, Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan.
4 Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”
In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.
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It would appear that when God intervenes, He is calling his people to remember, to not lose sight of those times. What memories stand out in your mind where God’s goodness was experienced and felt in a real and meaningful way. We need to occasionally and purposely go back in our minds and picturedsome of those occasions . . . and pass them on to our children as part of their heritage. It made me think when was the last time I went back in my mind and thanked God for the times He has intervened in our lives. When life takes so many turns and is so full of the present, we don’t always think about the past.
However, maybe that is why we have celebrations such as thanksgiving, to refresh our minds and that we are called to remember, and by remembering give thanks.
But what if the memory is troubling, a negative experience or time in our lives, is there any way that we can possibly be thankful. We live in an imperfect world. Several weeks ago we went to church with our grandson, Austin Texas. The church was full . .. probably close to 1000 people (and this was just one of their 4 services that weekend. The unique thing was that it seemed that 90% of the congregation were under 30. (We were one of the very few with white hair). One of the reason’s that our grandson liked this church was because he found it authentic . . . the churches theme was stated several times . . . that it was a church of imperfect people worship a perfect God.
So to be real, we must admit that not all memories are great ones . . . there has been hurt, wrong actions, by ourselves and others, things said that should not have been said by others and ourselves. There were accidents, traumatic events, families split apart, anger, and loss. How are we to respond to these memories.
There is so much we will never understand . . . how a loving God will allow such things to happen that bring hurt and loss into people’s lives.
Although not always the case, sometime God uses the difficulties in our lives for His purposes.
Joseph is a great example: Not long ago we had a sermon on Joseph. Covering when he was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers.
I like this scene
Genesis 45:4-8 MSG
“Come closer to me,” Joseph said to his brothers. They came closer. “I am Joseph your brother whom you sold into Egypt. But don’t feel badly, don’t blame yourselves for selling me. God was behind it. God sent me here ahead of you to save lives. There has been a famine in the land now for two years; the famine will continue for five more years—neither plowing nor harvesting.
God sent me on ahead to pave the way and make sure there was a remnant in the land, to save your lives in an amazing act of deliverance. So you see, it wasn’t you who sent me here but God. He set me in place as a father to Pharaoh, put me in charge of his personal affairs, and made me ruler of all Egypt.”
Paul also had many difficult times in his life . .. he said
“I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.
three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea,
I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
We are imperfect people living in an imperfect world and bad things happen, even to good people.
But Paul was still able at the end of his life to say:
"Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ..." Phil. 3:8.
Paul also said:
1 Thessalonians 5:18 NLB
18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to
Christ Jesus.”
So when we look back on our lives, there have been special times where a memory of the event reminds us that God was immanently involved in our lives. This is a time it is good to remind ourselves of God’s goodness and be thankful. In times of difficulty, we can reflect on how God brought us through the difficult time and give still thanks.
Hopefully over this thanksgiving weekend memories of the times you experienced Gods specific unique goodness to you will come to mind . . . and your heart will be lifted to give thanks.