Illustration: A man was invited to dinner by his elderly neighbors. The old gentleman endearingly preceded every request to his wife with ‘Honey,’ ‘Darling,’ ‘Sweetheart,’ ‘Pumpkin,’ etc. The man was impressed since the couple had been married almost 70 years. While the wife was off in the kitchen, he said to the gentleman, “I think it’s wonderful that after all the years you’ve been married, you still refer to your wife in those terms.” The elderly husband just hung his head. “Actually, I forgot her name about 10 years ago.”
Introduction: Remembering is an important element of Christian faith. In certain Christian ceremonies you are instructed, “Remember your baptism.” Moses tells the people of Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 9:4-9). The writers of Proverbs says, “Remember the Lord in everything you do, and he will show you the right way” (Proverbs 3:6). Remembering is a pretty big deal as a part of the Christian faith.
Central Idea: In the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection in the Gospel of Luke, we encounter two ways of remembering. There is the typical recalling of events that we all engage in every day. In the Greek this is called Mimnesko. There is also is also a spiritual remembering that actually invokes the past event into the present, so that the event of the past becomes real again, continually recurs and lives in us even today. This type of remembering is called in Greek amannesis, to invoke the past into the present through remembrance. If you will learn the practice of amenesis, the past event of the life, death and resurrection of Christ can continually live in you, and give you more joy, peace and power than you ever thought possible for your life.
Mimnesko: Let’s talk about Mimnesko first. It appears in our passage today (Luke 24:8), when Luke says the women at the empty tomb remembered the words that Jesus said. They recalled what Jesus had said, but the memory had not yet changed their life. It was simply a memory in their head, like you might remember what a high school teacher might have taught you many years ago. All of us came here today to recall or remember the beautiful story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But I know how the routine can be. Oh, it’s Easter, let’s make Mom or grandma happy, get dressed up and to hear the Easter story. Then we’ll have a family gathering and be well fed. You’ll leave here having remembered the story of the resurrection of Christ, but that’s all it will be, just a sentimental, fond recollection of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s good to remember the story, but if that is where you end your engagement with the story, you will miss out on the power of the story to transform you, ignite in you a new fire and empower you to greater things.
Anamenesis: Oh, but there is a way for the story of Jesus’ resurrection to transform you, ignite in you a new life and to empower you to greater things. So, let’s consider the second type of remembering that we can do as we recall an event, and it is found in Luke 22:19, in last supper of Jesus Christ with his disciples. During this meal, Jesus breaks the bread and pours the cup, which represent his body broken for us and blood shed for us and says this: “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). Here Jesus uses the dynamic word anamnesis. It means remember me in such a way that your recalling of me and what I am doing for you, becomes a living reality in you not only today, but tomorrow and the next day, for the rest of your life. Live in the power of Christ every moment, by invoking his presence in your present by remembering him into the present moment.
A Glimpse of Anamnesis: I saw a glimpse of anamnesis in action yesterday at our Super Saturday Easter Egg event with several young children here at the Church. I had the blessing and privilege to share the story of Christ rising from the grave with our the children who attended our Super Saturday yesterday. I was on the schedule to share the story right before the Easter Egg hunt, so I was standing between the kids and a basketful of chocolate. No pressure! I told the story as animated as I could, of the soldiers whipping Jesus, of the thorny crown, the pierced side, and finally the empty tomb. By the end of the story, some of the children’s eyes were wide open. One of the girls asked me, “How did you know about all that?” Remember me so powerfully in the Spirit that my life lives in you, that your life lives out the resurrection story each day. That you become a resurrected life, a redeemed life, a life that pours out the same love, grace and mercy as does the living Christ. When Jesus said at the last supper, “Do this in remembrance of me,” he wasn’t suggesting that we remember the life of Jesus like we might remember our first date, or prom night, or the first Paul McCartney concert we ever attended (Rosemont Horizon in Chicago, 1989 – it was awesome!). Jesus does not want us to recall him as a fond, sentimental memory. When he says remember, he uses the word anamnesis. Remember me so strongly that I live in you in this moment!
Faith as Continual Anamnesis: Faith, then, is a continually act of Anamnesis, of invoking the life of Christ in our hearts and minds by remembering into the present what he has done and is doing for us. Christ is river of love, grace, mercy and power ever flowing into us. We are a stream fed by that flowing power, if we will believe in the power of this Christ to save us, to feed us, to transform us. For this reason, Paul says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (Romans 1:16).
No Four Step Plan to Amenesis: There is no four step plan to learning how to invoke the love, grace, mercy and power of Christ into the present in order to save and transform your life, other than to begin with faith. Trust that the risen Christ of the empty tomb of two thousand years ago, is the eternal Christ who lived before the foundations of the earth and who lives on in the world today. Colossians 1:20 says, in fact, this Christ presence holds all things together – your marriage, your family, your job, your community, your nation. And we wonder why our personal lives and our community and our nation can get in such a mess? We are not remembering. We are not practicing Anamnesis, continually invoking the event of Christ, the person of the eternal Christ into our present moment, every day. There is no four-step program for this to happen, but there is a practice, a process, you must undertake. As I said, it begins with faith, but it only grows in us through an increasing responsiveness to God’s outpouring of grace. We respond through dedicated prayers, through reading the Scriptures, through worshipping with God’s people, through testifying and witnessing to God’s goodness, through serving others in the name of Jesus. Those are just a few.
Challenge and Invitation: So I make this challenge. If you came here today to casually, sentimentally or by some form of family obligation to remember Christ, that is all good and well. But a casual, sentimental, obligatory recalling of the resurrection story will not save you, transform you or empower you to face life, to survive and to thrive. I challenge you to remember in such a way that you invoke the eternal Christ into your present moment. That takes faith. That takes you saying, I believe in the eternal presence of the Christ, the living presence of a Creator God in the world, who can breathe into me new life, unspeakable joy, a peace that passes all understanding, who can resurrect me from my tired, pointlessly meandering, empty life and make me anew. I challenge you to say to the Christ, who is as present today as he was two thousand years ago, as he was at the beginning of time, say to him, Christ, I believe, help me in my unbelief. I challenge you keep Christ in your mind and heart with every thought and every breath. Saul, the persecutor of Christians, took the challenge to trust in Christ, to invoke him into the present by remembering him, and this is how he described the experience of anamnesis: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
“An empty grave is there to prove my savior lives”, and life is worth the living, because He lives.
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