1 Corinthians 11:23-26 – Avoiding Amnesia
An older couple had trouble remembering common, day-to-day things. They both decided that they would write down requests the other had, and so try to avoid forgetting. One evening the wife asked if the husband would like anything. He replied, “Yes. I’d like a large ice-cream sundae with chocolate ice cream, whipped cream and a cherry on top.” The wife started off for the kitchen and the husband shouted after her, “Aren’t you going to write it down?” “Don’t be silly,” she hollered back, “I’m going to fix it right now. I won’t forget.”
She was gone for quite some time. When she finally returned, she set down in front of him a large plate of hash browns, eggs, bacon, and a glass of orange juice. He took a look and said, “I knew you should have written it down! You forgot the toast!”
Perhaps most of us could say we don’t have the memories we used to have. What’s funnier, as we get older, we remember funny things. Like, we remember the silliest things from when we were kids, but we can’t remember what we had for breakfast. The loss of memory does strange things to people.
Perhaps that’s why the Bible tells us to remember things on purpose. The writer of Hebrews said this: “Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” He also went on to say this: “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you.” The entire book of Deuteronomy, which literally means “the second telling”, is about Moses calling the people to remember what the Lord had done for them. Most of us have heard the verse in Ecclesiastes: “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.” The apostle Paul said that we should continue to remember the poor. And at the end of his letter to the Colossians, he told his readers to remember his chains in prison. And Paul also told Timothy, the young pastor, to “remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David.”
Apparently, by the number of times and number of things we are told to remember, you would think humans have a fairly short memory. Even as Christians, we forget. Listen to what Peter said about growing in the faith, from his second letter: “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.”
Peter went on to say: “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.” That means, that if you aren’t becoming more and more like the Lord, then you have forgotten what the Lord has done for you.
John wrote in Revelation 3:5: “Remember the height from which you have fallen!” The Lord Jesus is saying, remember where you were. Remember what it was like when you first found the Lord. Remember how you wouldn’t miss church. Remember how you had faith to move mountains. Remember how you devoured the Word. Remember your excitement and enthusiasm. Where did it go? Why did it leave? Today we continue our summer sermon series on the why’s of our worship – why we do what we do. Today we will celebrate communion.
Paul writes these words in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. Today we are called to remember the sacrifice of our Lord.
Now, the word “remember” is a good one. I don’t usually quote Greek words, but you might find this one interesting. The original word is “anamnesis.” This comes from “ana”, which means “repeatedly”, and “mnesis”, meaning “calling to mind” or “remembering”. So, the words of Jesus tell us to celebrate communion because we are to repeatedly remember Him. Communion is about remembering what Jesus did for us.
But another thing about this word is the second half, “mnesis”, which as I say means “calling to mind.” If you were to make the word negative, in Greek you would add the prefix “a”; for example, an a-theist is someone who doesn’t believe in Theos, or God. So, not remembering, not calling to mind, not thinking about, is “a-mnesis”… amnesia. Not remembering the Lord is our lives is spiritual amnesia.
And Jesus calls us to remember Him. He calls us to remind ourselves what He has done for us. Romans 3:23 says: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And 6:23 says: “For the wages of sin is death.” That means we all sinned, and we all deserve hell. Everyone of us deserves it. Still do. We all still deserve to go to hell. You’ve heard me say this, life isn’t fair, but be glad because of it. If life were fair and just, we would not even get a chance to go to heaven.
But often, the longer we have been saved, the more we forget who we were before we found the Lord, or rather, He found us. We forget who we were and what we were like before we met Him.
1 Cor.6:9-11 – “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
It’s funny, though. Sometimes we long for the old days. The book of Numbers quotes the grumbling Israelites with these words: “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost--also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!" They remembered the good parts, forgetting the bad parts, like slavery. Sometimes that’s us.
But Moses threw cold water on their wishful thinking: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there.” Folks, don’t forget the bondage you were in when you lived to please yourself. Don’t forget what Jesus set you free from. Don’t long to be in charge again. Some of you Christians listening want the blessings of forgiveness but also want to still run your life. But don’t long to go back. Don’t long for the way things were. Don’t forget that Jesus gave you freedom from yourself.
Communion conjures images of a farewell dinner with close friends. Except one of these friends betrayed Jesus. So has each of us. One of these friends denied knowing Jesus. So has each of us. Communion conjures images of an unconditional love, knowing no boundaries. Communion shows us a desire to restore and forgive. Communion reveals to us God’s longing to spend time with us. And yet we come in and walk out week after week just the same, never changed, never more like Him than when we walked in, still stumbling over the same sin year after year, never growing or growing up. We forget that Jesus came to forgive us and change us
Paul Harvey told this in 1977 as part of his The Rest of the Story radio program. “It is gratitude that prompted an old man to visit an old broken pier on the eastern seacoast of Florida. Every Friday night, until his death in 1973, he would return, walking slowly and slightly stooped with a large bucket of shrimp. The sea gulls would flock to this old man, and he would feed them from his bucket.
Many years before, in October 1942, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was on a mission in a B-17 to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea. But there was an unexpected detour which would hurl Captain Eddie into the most harrowing adventure of his life.
Somewhere over the South Pacific the Flying Fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio. Fuel ran dangerously low, so the men ditched their plane in the ocean. For nearly a month Captain Eddie and his companions would fight the water, and the weather, and the scorching sun. They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts. The largest raft was nine by five. The biggest shark…ten feet long. But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable: starvation. Eight days out, their rations were long gone or destroyed by the salt water. It would take a miracle to sustain them. And a miracle occurred.
In Captain Eddie’s own words, “Cherry,”(that was the B-17 pilot, Captain William Cherry) “read the service that afternoon, and we finished with a prayer for deliverance and a hymn of praise. There was some talk, but it tapered off in the oppressive heat. With my hat pulled down over my eyes to keep out some of the glare, I dozed off. Something landed on my head. I knew that it was a sea gull. I don’t know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew too. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that gull. The gull meant food…if I could catch it.” And the rest, as they say, is history. Captain Eddie caught the gull. Its flesh was eaten. Its intestines were used for bait to catch fish. The survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because a lone sea gull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, offered itself as a sacrifice.
You know that Captain Eddie made it. And now you also know…that he never forgot. Because every Friday evening, about sunset…on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast…you could see an old man walking…white-haired, bushy-eyebrowed, slightly bent. His bucket filled with shrimp was to feed the gulls…to remember that one which, on a day long past, gave itself without a struggle…like manna in the wilderness.”
Jesus gave Himself without a fight. He went peacefully that we may obtain peace. He shed His blood that we may never die eternally. He gave His life that we may live. Ephesians 2 tells us this: “Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)-- remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.” It is the spilt blood and broken body of the Lord that we celebrate today. We remember.
