Luke 22 v 14 – 23
It’s strange, this ‘social separation’, it gets you doing things that you have put off for years. Even though there has been opportunity many times before and you’ve put it off, but now we are looking round for things to do and we have decided that now is the time. I have to admit that am just the same, after all I’m at home a lot anyway but today is the day for doing that job, and for me it was sorting out the ottoman in my bedroom.
Do we still have ottomans? Mine came when Jeans wardrobe started to get full so things were moved out into the ottoman to make more room. Since then it has changed its purpose into a store for old photographs. For the past few years it has only been opened in order to deposit more photos and then the lid has been firmly shut, so it was time that I spent an hour sorting it out.
The only problem is once you start looking at one photo you have to look at them all and there are so many things to look at. That suit I was wearing in 1980 I’ve still got, and that Rugby shirt from 1978 I’m still wearing, and when did I have so much hair? And was my beard really black?
Of course not all the photos are of me they are mostly of family holidays on the beach and in the sea and there lies another problem, what year was that? Was it 1978 or 79, how old was Sam, how old was Helen, had Sarah been born then? The job that was going take no more than an hour was still incomplete at bedtime and in my case I have stride over piles of photos to get to my bed, guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow?
One thing this process does do is make you remember, memories come flooding back and you wish you could go back to some of the places and relive that time again.
I’ve just finished reading a book (yes that’s right it’s another thing we do in ‘social separation’), Tinker Sailor Soldier Spy by John LeCarre, it’s cold war spy story where there is a ’mole’ in the government. The hero George Smiley, has to go back in time to find the evidence. Only by looking at old photographs can he jog the memories of those people involved, and I sort of knew how he felt, I wished I had him here in my ottoman.
While taking a break from my photos, I had a conversation over the fence (much more than two metres apart) with my neighbour and in conversation I flippantly mentioned that the schools must be back to normal as they would have been on holiday for Easter. She was taken aback and suddenly said ‘I forgotten all about Easter’. In all the confusion about Coronavirus it had slipped her mind that Easter was approaching.
How can we forget about Easter? It’s the foundation of our faith and salvation through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection. Could it be that in the confusion of our lives we push to one side the most important event in the history of humankind.
Luke’s Gospel (Luke 22 v 19) tells us that as Jesus shared the bread and wine at that last supper he said ‘Do this in memory of me’. It’s as though Jesus is saying; I will remember you always, but I do this so you will remember me.
It is likely that most of us will unable to take communion together at this time but with each meal we have let’s use it to remember what our Lord Jesus Christ did for each one of us. Let us use our meals as a photograph of God’s love to jog our memories of our Lord Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for us all.
‘Do this in memory of me.’
Derek T.