While we on the Gulf Coast have experienced our own version of 9-11 just two years ago in the form of a devastating hurricane, we all still feel the sadness of September 11, 2001. We will join the rest of the nation in remembering next Tuesday, the 6th anniversary of that awful event. We will think of the thousands who died in their offices, those who died rescuing them, those who died on the plane and in the Pentagon, and all who were affected by these deaths. We will remember that day, recall the pain, and recommit ourselves.
The wound from 9-11 has mostly healed, but it has left a lasting scar on the soul of America. We are determined not to forget.
However, let us bear in mind that remembering is often a problem for us.We recall what we need to forget and turn loose of the very things we should remember.
In some ways and some areas, but not all, remembering is a necessary part of the human experience. We write notes to help us remember a grocery list or chores. We carry calendars and day-timers to get us to important assignments on time. We work to remember appointments, anniversaries, and the names of people. Teachers give tests so that we might remember the lessons they have presented to the class.
“Do this in remembrance of me” has been carved across the front of Lord’s Supper tables in almost every Protestant church in the land. Our Lord ordered this memorial supper to keep before us the matter of His death. “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord’s death until He come.” He gave us baptism–the original kind, full immersion–to keep His burial and resurrection before the church and the world. With these two ordinances, the Lord’s Supper and baptism, we portray the great events of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection to one another and the world.
In many situations, not remembering but forgetting is the right action. Some matters cry out to be erased from the mind and never brought up again. The slights of a friend, harsh words from a lover, the failure of someone we counted on, all should be forgotten. Love keeps no account of evil, we read in I Corinthians 13. God forgives our sin and then assures us, “I will remember it no more.” That’s Hebrews 10:17, a quote from the Old Testament.
Forgetting is a handy device of the human spirit that allows us to close the doors on sad events and unpleasant chapters and go forward. Unkind words, harsh treatment, neglect, cruelty, misfortune, accidents, great pain–we need to forget. “Forgetting those things which are behind,” Paul wrote, “I press forward.” (Philippians 3:13)
“How can you treat her so well after what she did to you?” someone asked a friend. “Oh,” she answered, “I distinctly remember forgetting that.”