DON'T FORGET! REMEMBER

 

November 10, 2025

Luke 22:19

". . . do this in remembrance of me."

I Chronicles 16:12

"Remember the wonders he has done."

We will remember them! Tomorrow, our nation focuses on the act of Remembrance. Each year, on November 11, communities across Canada, both large and small, hold services to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice by giving their lives for others, including you and me.

As I prepared for Remembrance Day 2025, I found myself contemplating the Old Testament's concept of "remember." To truly understand the Hebrew idea of "remembering," it might help to consider what it means in the Bible to forget.

To forget nowadays simply means letting an idea or thought slip from your mind. Forgetting a person just means they’re no longer in your thoughts. In the Bible, however, forgetting someone was far more severe, it meant erasing, obliterating, or destroying them. When the Israelites begged God not to forget them, they weren’t asking Him to occasionally think of them; they were pleading, “Don’t destroy us, don’t erase us.” Clearly, forgetting isn’t just about ideas; it’s tied to lived experiences.

Similarly, remembering is deeply connected to lived experiences. In the Old Testament, to remember meant bringing a past event into the present, so that its meaning and impact continue to resonate now. What happened back then remains active in people’s lives, allowing them to share in the same experience as those who witnessed the original event. For instance, when the Israelites are urged to remember their ancestors’ deliverance from slavery centuries earlier, they aren’t just recalling a historical fact, they are being called to live that same reality of deliverance in their own time. Just as their ancestors experienced God’s great deliverance firsthand, they too are invited to intimately know a similar deliverance in their lives, even hundreds of years later.

Today, remembering often just means recalling an event or idea. But in the Bible, remembering carried much greater significance, it meant that past events remained alive and powerful in the present, continuing to shape and transform life. Isn't that exactly what we do at the Lord's Supper? We come to the table to "remember" that our salvation and reconciliation with God and one another were made possible only through the sacrifice of the cross. As Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me."

On Remembrance Day, November 11, 2025, we pause to reflect. It would be meaningful to remember in a Biblical sense this year. During those minutes of silence, let our act of remembering carry deeper significance. We’ve come to understand that true remembrance brings past events into the present, making them a guiding truth in our lives today.

The past event was one of immense sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice humanly possible, made in the name of justice and peace. The world’s circumstances demanded that countless families sent their loved ones to fight for these ideals, with many losing their lives in the process. As I recently read, "Justice and peace have never been obtained without sacrifice, and never will be."

In the Biblical sense of “remembering,” we should always keep in mind the Remembrance Day phrase, “Lest we forget.” This isn’t about letting memories of past events fade away; it’s about ensuring the sacrifices of those who came before us are not erased, disregarded, or made meaningless. To truly remember their sacrifice is to honor it by making our own sacrifices for the sake of others.