Remembrance

Deuteronomy 4:9 KJV
Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons;

Throughout the Torah, God asks the children of Israel to remember, to set aside certain items as a remembrance, or follow a procedure/custom to remember the past. For example, in the upcoming book of Joshua, they will create a pile of stones to commemorate the crossing of the Jordan River. In previous books, God instructed his people to set aside the Sabbath as a day of rest and to spend that day reverencing Him (Lev. 19:30). Similarly, he laid out the feast days and gave procedures to follow on those days. The procedures represent the things of the past. For instance, the feast of Passover is designed to commemorate their escape from Egypt.

All of these things served 2 purposes:

1. To remind the adults of God’s faithfulness in the past.
2. To teach the children of God’s faithfulness in the past.

God tells us He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever (Mal. 3:6; Heb. 13:8). Based on that, if He’s been faithful before, He’ll be faithful again. We are so easy to forget God’s goodness, and He knows that. That is why he wants us to continually do things to remind ourselves of what He’s already done.

In regard to teaching our children, I’m going to get a little technical here: children under the age of 11, but especially those under the age of 7, need concrete things to help them learn. At school, this would mean physically moving 7 pennies to discover 3+4=7. Once that is done often enough, students begin to gain a theoretical understanding of 3+4 and no longer need objects to move. God developed our entire body and is well aware of the development of the brain in our children. He knew they would need concrete items to help them understand and remember. That is why he uses different aspects of the Passover meal to represent the escape from Egypt and the pile of stones to commemorate the crossing of the Jordan. These physical objects help our children grasp large theological teachings that can be difficult to understand otherwise.

Turning to the NT, we do this same practice when we take communion. Using the bread and the wine (grape juice) can be a great opportunity to explain to our children the price that Christ paid for us on Calvary.

So when God tells us to partake of a custom for remembrance, we do it to help both ourselves and our children build the faith.