Remember, they say. I don’t remember 1605, but I went to the bonfire and fireworks on Thursday. Remember, they say. I don’t remember 1918 or 1944 – I was born some years after. Remember, they say.
And yet I do remember – from history books, from films, from conversations with people who are older than me. And I knew someone who served in the South Atlantic in 1982.
We say ‘Remember’ and tend to think about the past: remember the terror of war, remember the sacrifice of those who ‘for our today gave their tomorrow’.
But isn’t ‘memory’ about the future as well as the past? Memory of the past gives context for the future, memory of the past shapes what we do (or don’t do) today – to not repeat past wrongs but do better. We can’t do better than those who sacrificed their lives because ‘greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (John 15:13). But perhaps we can do better in seeking a world where such sacrifice isn’t required.
This is why Jesus came – he said “The Kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe’. Mark 1:15. An he gave his life for it.
Raymond