In Remembrance of Me
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
March 24, 2005—Maundy Thursday
I Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35
The older I get, the worse my memory is. It becomes harder for me to remember names. Harder for me to remember things that people have asked me to do. Harder to remember where I parked my car the night before. And so, I was struck by the scripture lesson tonight about Jesus at the last supper instructing his disciples to “do this in remembrance of me”.
A. What does it mean to remember?
What does it this kind of remembrance mean? What is Jesus asking of us when he says, “Do this in remembrance of me”?
In a religious context, memory is not something strictly intellectual. It does not have as much to do with recalling facts or events. If any of you has ever been to a Passover seder, there is a section of that meal where the youngest child asks the eldest person to explain why this night is different from all others. Part of the explanation that is received, and what participants of the meal are told to tell others is that “This is what the Lord did for me when the Lord brought me out of Egypt.” It’s a very first person recollection. It is not phrased as “This is what the Lord did for them when he brought them out of Egypt.” The idea is that at the Passover you remember the Exodus, remember the liberation from bondage, remember God’s saving activity, as if the participants in the seder had participated in the Exodus itself.
In that same way, Jesus is inviting his disciples, and us, to remember him. Not simply in their recollections and memories, but with their very being. That is, remembrance is not specifically a recollection of events, but involves reliving the story anew.
Remembrance is a way of life. When Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me” he reminds us that this remembrance is something that we do, not simply something that we contemplate or think.
The interesting thing about remembrance is that the way we remember Jesus is not simply to remember the past and the events that happened two thousand years ago, but we remember the future as well. We remember the Kingdom of Heaven, the Heavenly Banquet, the joyous festival—the eating and drinking in celebration that Christ uses to describe the joy that we will feel when the Kingdom comes upon us. He asks us to remember not only what has been, but what will be—and to remember with our very being.
B. In Remembrance of Me
He also gives us a way that that future is modeled. In John’s gospel, we read of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. It’s a lesson that we who are Christians—we who would remember Christ—must first be servants in the world. We must first remember that we have been charged with taking care of one another. Christianity is not an individual enterprise, it is something that we do together as a community. When we remember Christ, we remember that he died for the sake of others—to show us the way of God.
Sometimes our memories fail. Often the Church fails to adequately remember Christ. That is why on nights like this, we gather together, to tell the old story once again. We place ourselves within it—not as listeners, but as participants in the drama that we relive every day. To remind ourselves, to help us with our memory.
We will engage in the washing of the feet with some representatives of the congregation, to remember Christ. We take the bread and wine—the Lord’s Supper—to remember the meal that he shared with his disciples and the festival meal that he promises us in the Kingdom. In this way we remind ourselves of the life we are called to. We remind ourselves of who it is we are and whom it is we serve. And we do this to gain a better understanding of what it means when Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
