Thinking about the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack in the United States got me wondering what we posted ten years ago on the 10th anniversary. Here’s what we talked about that day.
September 11, 2011
Seen enough of the TV specials? Tired of hearing of “9/11?” You should know there’s a good reason why we need those programs and magazine features and internet tributes:
People Tend to Forget
Jesus understood this. Scripture tells us that on the night he was betrayed he took bread and broke it and said, “This is my body, broken for you; this do in remembrance of me.”
But you already know that. Those words from I Cor. 11 are often the most-repeated words in most churches during the course of a church calendar year. “For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered unto you;” is somewhat how I think the KJV renders it. The section from verse 23 to approx. verse 30 forms what is called “The Words of Institution” for the communion service aka Lord’s Supper aka the Eucharist. Even if you attend a church where things are decidedly non-liturgical, these verses probably get read each time your church observes “the breaking of bread;” and even if your pastor leans toward the New Living Translation or The Message, it’s possible that he lapses into King James for this one.
Why did Jesus institute this New Covenant, Second Testament version of the Passover meal?
Because people tend to forget.
Want proof?
Let’s look at the section we almost never read when we gather around the communion table, Luke 22. In verse 19 and 20 he tells them to remember. He tells them his life is about to be poured out for them. What a solemn moment. A holy moment. But unfortunately, a very brief moment.
In verse 24, Luke makes it clear that he’s trying to capture an accurate picture of what happened that night. Even if it makes the disciples look bad. It’s the kind of stuff that you would never include in your report to Theophilus if you were merely trying to make Christianity look good. If you were writing propaganda.
24 A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest.
I don’t want to be disrespectful here, but Luke might as well have written, “At this point, one of the disciples looked out the window of the upper room and announced, ‘Guys, you gotta come here for a minute; there’s a girl out there that is totally hot.’”
I’m serious. It’s that much out of place with what’s just happened. Jesus is telling them — trying to tell them — all that he is about to suffer in order that a plan laid out from before the foundations of the world will be fulfilled. And they’re arguing about who is Disciple of the Month. How could they go from one extreme to the other so quickly? In a matter of seconds?
Easily.
People tend to forget.
Whether it’s what happened in New York City, Washington, and that Pennsylvania field ten years ago; or whether it’s what happened in Roman occupied territory in the middle east two thousand years ago; we need to continually rehearse these stories in our hearts and pass them on to our children.
This is a day that is about remembering and like the upper room disciples, we can get so totally distracted. September 12th comes and everyone moves on to the next topic or news story. We must not let ourselves lose focus so easily. We must not forget.
Deuteronomy 4:9
Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.
Tomorrow, in another flashback to an earlier post here at C201, we’ll look at the idea of creating memorials to remember times of both hardship and blessing in our lives.
Read more about the cross at Ground Zero in this special-edition article we ran in August, 2011.
Christianity 201 
Creating a kind of historical equivalence is so American centered as to depreciate the last supper. Why not use the same analogy for the bombing of Hiroshima?
Comment by Brian — September 10, 2021 @ 11:23 pm |
I just want to be clear that my intention was not to equate the observance of the Last Supper with 9/11, or any other event in U.S. history, but to show that Jesus institutes this because of our human tendency to forget. Later today, in part 2 of 2, we’ll look at Israel marking events with physical memorials. Here in Canada, when Remembrance Day rolls around (our equivalent to Memorial Day and Veterans Day) we have a motto, “Lest we Forget.” It also reinforces that if we don’t observe these things we run the risk of forgetting. Would Christians seriously forget about the Last Supper? Not entirely, but pausing as a spiritual community and marking it either on a weekly or monthly basis forces us to be “in the moment.”
Comment by paulthinkingoutloud — September 11, 2021 @ 11:54 am |