Familiar words in a familiar scene. Do this in remembrance of me. That’s from the chosen season five that we’ll be watching here as a congregation this summer. Do this in remembrance of me. Let me ask a question. Have you ever walked, say, into a grocery store, go down the aisle and say, hold it. What am I looking for here again or. Maybe you’ve experienced a classic, you walk into the room, hold it. Why am I here? Or where to put my keys, or whatever it is in my pocket. And my purse. Heard about a guy, a forgetful husband. You know, there’s a few of those, I suppose, around the, around the block. But one day his wife said to him, honey, please don’t forget my birthday, which is tomorrow. Oh, of course honey, I’ll never, I’ll never forget that. Sure enough. He forgot that next day and frantically end of the day, he runs out, buys flowers, candy a fancy card, rushes home, bursts to the door, big smile on his face, hands, his wife, everything says happy anniversary, honey. Hmm. We are. I can be forgetful of that forgetful husband. We, we can be a forgetful people, can’t we? And perhaps there’s just something about our human condition that makes us prone to forget. Uh, things big, little important, but even the incredible truths about God are things that we can forget. I mean, maybe funny to lose our keys or our glasses or where we parked our car, but forgetting God, just as Pastor Susan read that is no small thing. It’s a very serious matter. And the costs of that kind of forgetfulness, it’s enormous, and it’s not new. We read, heard about it just right there from Deuteronomy chapter eight, when God’s people, they were standing when they heard those words on the cusp of the promised land, freshly rescued out of Egypt. And God gave them a loving but firm warning. Remember me. Remember what I’ve done, remember what I’m still doing, and that call to remember that same call that resonates from the pages of scriptures across time right to us here today. And so tonight, especially as we prepare to come together to the Lord’s table to remember Jesus, we want to come back to that same truth that we need.

To remember, and so we start to remember by this to recognize our tendency to forget. Yeah, it’s amusing and sobering. Just how easy we can forget those grocery lists or where we last, when we last changed the oil in our car, but forgetting about God and who he is. And what he has done here. Again, a couple of those words of that Stu Stern warming warning from Deuteronomy eight. Take care, lest you forget the Lord your God, lest when you leave Eaton and are full, your heart be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. I mean, God’s basically telling his people. If you forget me, then you will begin to question my power. You’ll wonder if I really am for you, and you’ll actually begin to trust in yourselves instead. And both of those paths, God is warning, we’ll destroy us. It’s the same true for us today when we fail to remember Jesus is the one. That we need. He’s the one who saves Christ and Christ alone. When we forget that we can fall kind of either into an anxious doubt, when things get tough, is God really with me? Has he forsaken me? Or we can proper selves up really with pride that says, well, I don’t need God’s help. And both mindsets lead us away from their true and real life. That God intends for us. Yes, we need to recognize we are by nature forgetful people, but thank God he doesn’t leave us there. He’s graciously given us ways to help us remember his rescue, his rescue of us. God and His grace was kind to give Israel ways to remember the people of Israel, I mean. Boy, you read through the Old Testament there, they needed ways to prod their memory. Something you know, more than just tying a string on your finger. So God established ordinances, holy ordinances, celebrations, festivals that would become markers on Israel’s calendar, reminding them to not forget, and chief among them was Passover. So 0.2, remember the power of Passover. Exodus 12 tells that story of Israel’s final night in Egypt, a series of plagues. Nine of them God had prepared and executed as judgment on Egypt. And now here comes the last and worst and harshest taking the life of every firstborn male in each Egyptian household. But God’s people, the Israelites would be spared if they followed God’s instructions, which were to sacrifice an unblemished lamb, smear its blood on their doorposts of their homes, and eat a meal of unleavened bread. Bread that had no time to rise because of the swiftness of God’s deliverance. This miraculous rescue, it was stamped into Israel’s identity from that night on and then forward. They had been saved from slavery under the cover of Blood of a Lamb, and God didn’t want them to ever forget that defining moment, and so he commanded them through Moses to hold an annual feast. Exodus 12. This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast for the Lord. Throughout your generations, seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread.

That’s seven days. Now think on your family, especially family memories, and I hope you have a, a treasure trove of good memories of your fam, of your family and those good memories that you have. I’ll bet you a lot of them had food involved. Those famous family dinners or meals when our family was young and I were, were rearing them Friday night.
Pizza and movie night. I, I have lots of memories with my college friends at Godfather’s Pizza. I have a lot of memories with my family of origin. When I was growing up as a teenager, we were living up in Canada and we’d go out regularly to Boston Pizza. Now, yes, there’s a bit of a theme that’s going on there in my life, but what about for you, for the people of Israel, Passover, this meal? It became a living, tangible reminder of their deliverance, their liberation, their salvation, and it centered around a meal. When they ate unleavened bread, they remembered. They remembered the night they left so fast that the dough had no chance to rise. When they poured the wine and drank, they remembered. They remembered the blood on the doorposts that caused the angel of death, the destroyer, to pass by them to pass over. And why did God in sit insist on such a, a concrete ritual? I think it’s because he knew they that, that the human heart drifts, if not anchored in action. God knew Israel would forget the taste of freedom if they did not regularly remember it. God said to Israel, don’t forget your rescue. I delivered you. I saved you from the hand of Pharaoh. I led you out with a mighty arm, an outstretched hand. And God said, if you do forget, you’ll lose sight of who I am and who you are under my care. And that forget that forgetfulness, it comes with a high price. So God says, remember and let this meal help you remember so that Israel might not fall into profound doubt or improper confidence. It was vital for God’s people to remember their deliverance. And so by extension we also might avoid those same pitfalls today. And so it’s vital for us to remember our deliverance and God and His grace has given us also a very tangible way to do that. A meal that anchors us in the greatest act of rescue the world has ever known or seen. We call it communion. Communion is our reimagined and deepened Passover. On the night Jesus was betrayed, he gathered with his disciples in that upper room to celebrate the Passover meal. They sat around the table recalling the Exodus story just as generations. Of Jewish people had done for centuries, but then Jesus assigns new depth of meaning to those two ancient symbols, the bread and the cup. In Luke 22, when the hour had, when and when the hour came, Jesus reclined at the table and the apostles with them, and he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer before I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took a cup. And when he had given thanks, he said, take this and divided it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes and he took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And likewise, the cup after they’d eaten saying This cup is poured out for you. Is the new covenant in my blood just as God swiftly delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt. So now through Jesus, God delivers us even more swiftly from bondage to sin and death. And just as that Passover lamb’s blood, it marked Israelites doorframes sparing them from judgment.

So the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, marks our lives with salvation, sparing us from the death penalty of sin in communion. It’s our repeated reminder of this truth that God has gone to immeasurable lengths to rescue us through his son. So we are called to take and eat. And drink physical signs of a spiritual reality. And it’s so gracious that God invites us to his table to an actual meal because he knows that we learn best not just through our minds, but through our senses in the eating and the drinking. And in this we proclaim. We will not forget you, Jesus. We will not forget the cross. We will not forget the empty tomb. We will not forget that Jesus is the lamb whose blood. Purchased our salvation and sets us free. And in this remembering, our hearts are guarded against doubt. That wonders if God really loves us and it guards our heart against the pride that from which we can think, we can save ourselves shortly, we are gonna be invited to come to the Lord’s table together. And in doing so, we remember that Jesus fully, God, fully human, came to rescue us from sin. He lived among us showing the compassionate heart of the Father, and he willingly gave himself over to be crucified so that our penalty, our debt, would be paid in full and because of Christ’s shed blood. God’s judgment passes over us because of his resurrection. We can enter a new life marked by freedom and hope and just like God told Israel, remember your deliverance. So Jesus says to us, do this in remembrance of me. And so we will. We will do just that. We’ll take the bread, we’ll drink from the cup. And we will not forget, we will remember the savior who took our place, the lamb who stood in our stead, and the king who defeated sin and death, and Satan once for all.

So prepare your hearts to come to the table, ready to remember to worship and to give thanks for the deliverance that is ours because of the Lamb of God. Jesus Christ our savior, redeemer and king, join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, we praise you for the rescue and the hope that we have through the blood of your son, our true Passover lamb. Help us to remember his sacrifice each day that we might neither doubt your power. Nor trust in ourselves, but rather to rest completely and securely in your grace. Fill us with your spirit so that we may walk in faithful remembrance of your love and your deliverance.In Jesus’ precious name I pray, amen.