The Importance of Remembering
What does your family do to preserve memories? Photo albums? Videos? Oral histories?
This Thanksgiving, I started a recorded history with my 93 year old father. I asked him open-ended questions about different periods in his life, many of which I had heard about before. But now I have recordings of his responses – and many details of his life I didn’t know about. Some of those are painful and poignant. Some are hilarious! But now there is a record for grandkids and great-grandkids to hear years from now.
One thing older adults really like to do is remember. Memories tell the stories of our lives. Our stories tell us and others who we are.
Scripture is a book of memories. As with my father, many of scripture’s memories are painful and poignant; some are hilarious. But it tells the stories of our lives. More specifically, scripture tells the story of God’s life with his creation and with us. In those written memories, inspired by God, we – God’s great-great-great-great-grandchildren – learn who God is. Today, we can know who God is in our lives now through the record of who he has revealed himself to be through thousands of years.
Advent Traditions Help Us Remember
Our traditions and practices on our calendars year after year – birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Groundhog Day – these help us “remember to remember.” Advent is not only a time of anticipation and hope. Advent is a time of remembering – remembering that the Creator God of Genesis 1 entered into his creation in the most humbling of ways to re-create us. God stooped and stepped into a manger to show us, then and now, that God is with us. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – and of Ruth, Deborah, and David – and of Job, Daniel, and Esther – and of Isaiah, Joseph and Mary – became Jesus, who is called “Immanuel – which means ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23).
God Entered Our World
So, this Advent – even today – “remember to remember” that God is with you here and now. Who God has been in the inspired stories of scripture – truth, mercy, love, grace, power, healing, faithfulness, hope – is who God is in your life today.
Advent is “Immanuel” – the God of all of scripture’s memories is with us now.
This devotion is written by Dr. Ken Hugghins. Dr. Hugghins retired as the Senior Pastor at Elkins Lake Baptist Church in Huntsville, TX and serves as an adjunct professor at Stark College & Seminary.