March 16, 2025
Why Remember?
Luke 22:1-23
This morning, we are continuing in our Lenten series, titled “As We Turn to Face the Cross.” This year, in Lent, we will spend time going slowly through the last week of Jesus’ life, as he made his way to the cross. The gospels are so lavish in their description of Jesus’ last week. Even the shortest gospel, the gospel according to Mark, which races through so many teachings and stories with an economy of words, goes slowly in the last week, as we approach the cross.
As Jesus faced the cross, everything slowed down. Every word and action was freighted with meaning. In those final days, our faith teaches us that he came to the hinge of creation’s story, he arrived at the moment to which all of Israel’s history and all of God’s promises had been leading. As Jesus faced the cross, he came to the turning point in human history.
So this year, we will turn to face the cross and walk slowly with Jesus in his final days. Over the next few Sundays, the gospel according to Luke will be our guide.
Jesus had been in Jerusalem for some time, days perhaps weeks, and he had been teaching around the Temple. The conflict between him and the religious leaders of his time was heightening day by day, as his questions and teaching unmasked their unfaithfulness and hypocrisy. Then, at last, we come to what the gospels describe as the hour, the appointed time, to which everything had been leading.
Hear, now, the word of the Lord, the beginning of Jesus’ final days, from Luke 22.
“Now the Festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was near. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put Jesus to death, for they were afraid of the people.
Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve; he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him to them. They were greatly pleased and agreed to give him money. So he consented and began to look for an opportunity to betray him to them when no crowd was present.
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us that we may eat it.” They asked him, “Where do you want us to make preparations for it?” “Listen,” he said to them, “when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house he enters and say to the owner of the house, ‘The teacher asks you, “Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”‘ He will show you a large room upstairs, already furnished. Make preparations for us there.” So they went and found everything as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover meal.
When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves, for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But see, the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table. For the Son of Man is going as it has been determined, but woe to that one by whom he is betrayed!” Then they began to ask one another which one of them it could be who would do this.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
The heart of this story of the Last Supper rests in those simple, sacred words: “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Those words have been whispered and proclaimed for two thousand years They are etched in stone, carved in wood, repeated each time we gather at this table. I recall as a child, sitting in church, staring at those words, carved into the front of the communion table: Do this in remembrance of me.
This is, without a doubt, the most often repeated commandment of Jesus. What does it mean to remember Jesus? Not just to recall him, but to remember him in the way he asked of us?
As we explore this introductory scene to the last days of Jesus’ life, I want to suggest something profound: When we “do this in remembrance of” Christ, we participate in his life, and his life begins to live in us. We do more than recall, we relive.
I had prepared this morning to illustrate the power of memory with examples related to food. A breakfast, or dessert, or special meal that takes you back to a treasured time or place, maybe even carries you back to your childhood.
For me, there are several. Homemade biscuits invariably make me think of my mother, and the many times I watched her make them as I sat in the kitchen and we talked about life. Chicken and pastry strips inevitably make me think of my father, who made that meal for us when he wanted to remember his mother. Now sometimes I make those same things with my children. Something of their presence, and story of generations, lives in that moment.
I had planned to do more with that idea – ask me later if you want more! – but, honestly, the wind last night illustrates the point in a more immediate way. I went onto our porch about eight o’clock last night, and for the first time since September, I saw the trees bend over in the wind and heard the distinctive whistle through the screen. Immediately, memories and sensations arose that were deeper than recall. For an uncomfortable moment, I was there again watching the hurricane come through.
Then lying awake last night, for most of the night, listening to the wind howl through the trees, realizing the power had gone out. Maybe you too? The body remembers what the mind might forget – sounds and sensations bring the past into the present. It’s not just recalling, but reliving.
When Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me,” he was offering something far deeper than just summoning up a fond memory or instructions for a ritual. It is no accident that he gave us something to touch, and taste, and experience. Because he was inviting us into a transformative practice where, through Spirit-filled memory, his life could become woven into the fabric of our own.
Luke makes it clear that Jesus chose the Passover meal as the setting for this invitation — it was already a profound ritual of remembrance in Jewish tradition. At Passover, Jewish families don’t simply recall a historical event from long ago. They say, “We were slaves in Egypt. We passed through the sea.” The Hebrew understanding of remembrance — zakar — isn’t just mental recollection but making past events present and alive.
There’s a beautiful line in the traditional Passover Haggadah: “In every generation, each person must regard themselves as if they personally had come out of Egypt.” This isn’t pretending — it’s recognizing that this historical liberation is not just history. It is their story, it is their identity, and it is their hope.
It was within this rich tradition that Jesus transformed the Passover meal with his apostles into something new. Taking bread, he said, “This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” With the cup, he said: “This is the new covenant in my blood” – a new liberating promise, much like the Passover covenant.
Our English understanding of “remembrance” often fails us here. We think of remembering as a mental activity — recalling something from the past, perhaps with fondness, maybe wistfulness, it could bring a smile or make you sad. But the Greek word here anamnesis that Jesus uses carries the same depth as the Hebrew zakar — it’s so much more than simple recall, it’s about making present. It’s about participation.
When Jesus says “remember me,” he’s not asking us to think about him like a memory of someone who is gone. He’s inviting us into a living relationship. Through this act of remembering his life becomes part of ours. He’s inviting us to participate in who he is.
When we remember like this, time collapses. We remember what Christ has done (that’s the past), we experience his presence with us now (that’s today), and we anticipate the kingdom feast — the banquet he has prepared, where he will eat with his disciples again (that’s the future). All of this happens in one sacred moment of remembering. Past, present, and future converge as we participate in his life. Not recall, but relive.
Because this remembering is truly participation in Christ’s life, it changes – if we will let it –how we live. Let me explain what I mean. Throughout the gospels, Jesus’ table fellowship was very different from others around him.
He offered radical hospitality — Jesus ate with those people society rejected and said were unworthy or unclean, and he ate with those who had rejected themselves and deemed themselves unworthy. Whenever Jesus sat down at table, he became the host, and he extended a radical welcome.
His ministry displayed servant leadership — again, at tables – washing the feet of his disciples, serving them the meal, breaking bread for the hungry to share by the thousand.
And the community that Jesus created, his followers, broke boundaries — crossing barriers of gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, social status – all the things that separated people then, and separate them still today, were erased in the community around Jesus.
When we remember Jesus in worship and at the table, we don’t just recall these qualities — we begin to embody them. His life lives in us. Remembering him equips and sends us to live his life.
For example, our Saturday Sanctuary ministry, which concluded for the season just yesterday, is a small but beautiful example of this. We welcome our neighbors not only to provide food and warmth, but to create relationship. It’s the kind of table Jesus would have hosted. The boundaries between “server” and “served,” “housed” and “unhoused” dissolve into a recognition of our shared humanity. In those moments, Christ’s life lives in us.
And you know, as another example, in these days that are so tense and fraught, I often think that we practice this remembrance when we resist the pull toward ideological isolation and remain in community across our differences. I know it can be hard and uncomfortable, to realize that the person in your small group, or on your pew, or at your table is different – a different experience, different opinions – in ways that are profound and perhaps unsettling.
But in a world that seems determined to sort itself into tribes and nations and algorithm-driven affinity groups, remembering Christ calls us into a different future. When we remember Christ, we are called to resist the tribalism that is ever lurking as sin at our door, and we are called to allow the wide expanse of his love and life to live in us.
At the heart of this meal that Jesus longed to share are these words: “do this in remembrance of me.” What happens when we take seriously these words?
We discover connection in a world of isolation. We find ourselves participating in a story much larger than our own, a story that belongs to God. We find the life of Christ taking shape in us. We are sent into the world carrying Christ’s presence with us.
The early Christians, in those first centuries, didn’t just remember Jesus with words — they remembered him with their lives. The world noticed them because of that. Even non-Christian critics wrote with astonishment and often derision at how Christians called each other “brother” and “sister” across social divisions, how they shared their property as if no one owned anything, how they stayed and cared for the sick when others fled town out of self-interest. Their memory of Jesus shaped a community that lived with a different and brighter kind of light.
What could happen if we truly allowed Christ’s table practices to shape our lives – his hospitality, his servanthood, his boundary-breaking love?
In a world so determined to forget — to forget the lessons of the past, to forget the vulnerable, to forget the terrible cost of violence, to forget that ultimately we belong to each other because God has made us of one family — remembrance becomes a sustaining act. To remember Christ fully is to resist the amnesia of our time.
“Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus commanded. We’re not just recalling a figure in history; we’re participating in the ongoing life of the risen Lord. Not recalling, we’re reliving, being nurtured and equipped as God’s people.
[When we come to this table in a couple of weeks, to celebrate communion on the first Sunday as we do, I want you to remember that Jesus calls us to remember. As we remember him today in worship, and seek his presence in Word, and prayer, and song, I want you to remember that Jesus calls us to remember. Not simply to recall, but to relive. Jesus calls us to nothing less than a remembering that changes us from the inside out.]
As we prepare to come to this table today, hear again Christ’s invitation: “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Remember not just with your mind, but with your heart, your hands, your life.
Let us not just recall but relive, so that we may be transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ.
Do this… and remember.
Amen.
Rev. Patrick W. T. Johnson, Ph.D.
First Presbyterian Church
Asheville, North Carolina