Souvenirs
Originally scheduled for
March 22
Souvenirs
are often simple things. If you’ve ever had to clean out Mom’s house after she
died, you found that she had a lot of simple memories of her life:
·
From her days in High School, she had photographs of friends and
simple memories – pom-poms, pennants and such.
·
Her husband was a veteran of the military. She kept his medals
and ribbons as a memory of his service (and her service as a military wife and
mother.)
·
From their travels she kept any number of knick-knacks. These
were things like a paper cocktail umbrella from a restaurant long out of
business.
·
Poignantly, she kept programs from her friend’s funerals. They
were one last thing to remember them by.
Christians
keep memories like that too. We keep little things that remind us of the good
times (things we made at camp, for instance). Often enough we have items which
recall our service to the Lord – most teachers have a handmade something from
one of their students. If we’ve been on the mission field – even for a very
short term visit – we usually have some knick-knack from the country we
visited.
And we
have a memorial of one particular death. Our Lord knew the importance of such
a memorial. He gave us the Lord’s Supper as such.
·
We take the wine or juice as a memory of the blood he bled on the
cross for our salvation.
·
We take the bread as a memory of the broken, suffering body that
hung on that cross.
·
We do this until he returns; indeed, the very act of taking this
Communion is a proclamation that he is coming again.
It is
good to know what things should be forgotten. It is better to know what things
should be remembered.
