Remembrance as Worship
Exodus 13:1-16
This is the fourth sermon in a series I have called, “Finding Your Worship Language.”
Today we want to look at another way of expressing our Worship to God… Remembrance.
In our scripture today, we can see that there is a very close relationship between remembering and worshipping.
God knew that He had done some incredible things in order to prove Himself to the Israelites. 10 plagues, crossing the sea on dry land, manna, etc.
He did these things so that Israel would recognize that He was indeed the only true God and would give him their hearts and minds and bodies… submit to Him and WORSHIP Him.
But God realized that if we forget who He is, what He had done… we would tend to drift from Him… cease to seek Him, to need Him. Once we cease to need and remember… we will cease to give Him the place in our life that He desires and deserves. And we will cease to give Him the praise and worship of which He is worthy.
SO… God came up with a method, a means by which they would never forget. REPETITION… the key to learning and memory.
I remember in Seminary, one of the hardest classes I took was Greek. It was Greek to me. But here is the surprising thing. It was also the class in which I made one of my highest grades. Why?
One reason… REPETITION.
Every day I had to drive about 30 minutes to school… and back. During that time I used flash cards. On one side I wrote the Greek word.. and on the reverse I wrote the English. For the whole ride I would run through the stack of cards over and over and over… see the English and say the Greek, then reverse it.
I could not read a book or write a paper… but I could use flash cards. I must have gone through that stack 50 times a week.
If you have something to learn… REPEAT IT OVER AND OVER.
So God told the Israelites that every year, at the same time, they were to repeat the ceremony. Year after year, generation after generation.
God even included taste, smell, visuals, sounds… all of the senses.
If you want to remember something… experience it with more of your senses.
Are there any smells you can remember from your childhood? Any thing you can remember the feel. Or maybe the taste. Or the sound.
The original audience had experienced the event… the plagues. They remembered the sights the sounds and the smells. The next generation did not have that. So, God gave them their own experience of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.
Today we are experiencing two special events… Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Most of you remember your baptism… the feel of the water, the sound of the preacher’s voice, the nervousness or the excitement.
There is a true story of two prisoners in a Russian prison. They never saw each other, they were separated by a wall. But they learned to communicate by taps on the wall. They made up their own language. One day one, Joe, asked the other, Bill, to share communion with him. Bill agreed. Bill later related the story, he pretended to tear off a piece of the bread. He could feel the hard curst and with his fingers he pinched the soft insides. He held his empty hand to his nose and could smell the sweet aroma of the fresh baked bread. His mouth watered at the thought. In his mind’s eye he could see the preacher standing there, and hear him talking about the body, the flesh and how it was torn, pierced and sacrificed for our sins. As Joe tapped on the wall…”This is my body, broken for you… Bill raised the pretend bread to his lips and placed it in his mouth. It was the same old flavor, the flavor he had tasted a hundred times before…just as sweet and just as real as it ever had been in that small church back home.
Then Bill tapped on the wall and said, “Let me offer the cup.” They both picked up their little imaginary cup … they had felt that cup a hundred times. Bill tapped… “This is my blood of the new testament, shed for many for the remission of sins. Drink ye all of it.” As he raised the cup to his mouth the aroma of the grapes filled Bill’s nostrils. It was so comforting, so warming. It took him back to his own church, where he sat with his family and enjoyed the communion. Then he slowly tilted the cup and the taste buds watered as he could actually taste the sweet flavor. He remembered the pastor’s words about the blood that Jesus shed on the cross, blood that was shed by a sinless lamb to pay for the sins of a sinful world. Tears ran down Bill’s cheeks as he held the cup and remembered the pictures of Jesus hanging on the cross.
Could you have shared in that pretend communion that day. Could you have tasted the juice, felt the bread and heard the preacher?
I think you could. That is what God had in mind.
It is hard to remember someone you never met. It is hard to be touched by an event you did not personally experience. So, God gave us a way to remember the baptism of Jesus and the Passover meal… by taste, by sight, by personal experience.
Jesus said, “This do in remembrance of me.”
As we participate in the Lord’s Supper today…
We will experience… with all of our senses. We will see it just as those who were gathered on the edge of the river… or those who sat around the table in the upper room… or surrounded the cross.
We will taste it, feel it, hear it and smell it.
We will remember… that Jesus, perfect and sinless, died on a cruel cross, beaten, bloody and broken… so that He could pay the price for our sins.
And as we experience it, as it becomes real to us… if we will remember… WE WILL WORSHIP.
We will be broken by gratitude, crushed by the awareness of our unworthiness, and look to Him with eyes of love, of thanks and we will catch a sight of the greatness, the awesome nature of and the agape love of the Father.
And that is worship.
This morning, If you would like to join us in the celebration of God’s amazing love for us… if you would participate in the Lord’s supper…
We ask one thing.
EXAMINE YOURSELF! Are you able to come to this table.
These elements represent the sinless, perfect body of Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior who left Heaven… took on a fleshly body, was beaten, whipped, his beard pulled out, his back beaten to a bloody pulp and finally nails driven through his flesh.
They represent the blood that ran from Jesus’ side, his hands, feet, scalp and back. The life blood that drained from His body and caused him to die.
If you want to come her… you must be ready.
Confess your sin. Ask Jesus to wash it in His blood, wash it away forever.
And Praise God for His Love, His mercy and His grace.
Then meet us at the table to worship Him by remembering.
Rev. Rick Pendleton
Palm Harbor, Florida
randdp@peoplepc.com
As with all of my sermons... feel free to use any or all of it. You do not need to reference me. The story is one I heard many years ago and don’t know its origin.
