Re-Member: Peter Baker

The Church AGM last Thursday was a helpful reminder to look back and remember all that God has done among us over the previous twelve months.

In our fast–paced life it’s easy to be swept along by the next event, project or challenge without stopping to celebrate our victories and mourn our losses.  So let me encourage you to press the pause button from time to time and remember all that is true about God and His commitment to you.

The soul- speak of David in Psalm 103 is precisely this sort of personal recall. “Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits”. So instead of counting sheep tonight in bed, try counting your blessings! It is good for the soul.

The call to remember is heard in this Sunday morning’s passage from Exodus. Moses urges the generation who are about to experience a dramatic deliverance from Egypt on Passover night, to retell the narrative in subsequent years.  And by so doing, to keep alive the memory and the meaning of their rescue from slavery. So Moses imagines a child asking a parent at a future Passover meal “tell me what all this means?”

Isn’t this the same question we ask at our Communion service when with bread and wine we recount the words of Christ to his disciples the night before he died;  “do this in remembrance of me.”  We recall that Jesus the Passover lamb shed his blood for our sins that we  might go free.  But it’s more than a memory exercise, it’s also a celebration of the life of freedom and forgiveness that we enjoy with God in the present through faith in Christ.

So let’s remember and celebrate!

Peter