Memorials!

Memorials has arrived, for those of you not aware, or who have not yet procured yourself a copy. It is my fourth kids album, and is full of Bible story songs drawn from those passages which refer to memorials.

I was interested to discover, as I was writing these songs, that almost every time something is mentioned as a memorial, whether the rainbow, or the offering portions, or Passover, or the jealousy test from Num. 5, the memorial was primarily God-ward. "I will see My bow, and I will remember my covenant..." "Burn this as its memorial portion on the altar, a pleasing aroma to the Lord." "It is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of remembrance, bringing iniquity to remembrance."

It is not so that I will remember, but that God will see me make the offering, and will remember me for good. God is the rememberer.

"Do this in remembrance of Me." I was always taught that this meant that I had to think about, to recall, the things that Christ had suffered on my behalf. But as I consider the concept of remembrance in the Scriptures, I am led to believe that this is missing the point. If Paul and Jesus are employing the idea of remembrance in the same way that Scripture almost uniformly does, and there is no reason to assume that they aren't, then they are treating the Lord's Supper as a memorial (as indeed, it can be translated as *Do this unto My memorial*).

When we participate in the Supper; when we eat the bread and drink the cup together in Church by faith, the Lord looks on us and remembers us for our good. And it is the *doing*, not the remembering on my part, which forms the obedience and the faith that God desires.

There is the occasional story in Scripture which doesn't use "remembrance" in this way. When stones, or piles of stones, were set up for later generations to inquire about, they usually are for men to see and recall past events. But not even all of these function in this way. Consider the pile of stones that Israel set up in the middle of the Jordan river. Who but God and the fish were ever going to see that?

Hopefully these songs will help to shed some light on these things, which every kid and former kid needs to think about.

Write me at jamie@solmusic.ca for your copy.