Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.
Hebrews 10:32-34
Memory is one of those things that we take for granted. Just this morning, I woke up and remembered that I needed a haircut. Now, I didn’t make a big deal about trying to remember it. I looked at myself in the mirror the other day and thought that I could use one.
But it wasn’t until Mary Ann gently suggested that I needed a haircut that I made a decision to do something about it. Now, she didn’t make a big deal about it or anything like that. But because I love her, the suggestion stuck. So, when eight AM rolled around, I drove to the local barber shop and got a haircut.
Sometimes remembering just happens. You don’t have to do anything for those thoughts to just come back. It can be a smell that lights up a powerful memory. Or it can be a date on the calendar. Whatever it is that triggers it, the memory rushes back and then we’re sort of stuck with it. Memory is a powerful thing.
This is why it’s such a tragedy when people lose their memory. I have a relative that’s on the downside of Alzheimer’s. Over the past few years, he’s been losing his memory more and more. Lately, it seems to have picked up speed. He didn’t remember his wife’s birthday or Mother’s Day either. And even though his wife completely understands that it’s the disease that behind this change to the sweet and kind man she married, it still hurts.
Because memory is so powerful, the writer uses it to shake up the Hebrews. He wants them to remember the early days of their faith in Jesus. When they trusted Jesus, they went all in. They weren’t afraid to speak up about their decision and dedication in two directions.
Away from. Their first step was to leave all the rituals and traditions where they did the same thing over and over again but without any change. It never really paid for their sins. If it had worked, then they wouldn’t have to keep doing the sacrifices over and over again.
Towards. Instead of just wandering around, they walked towards Jesus and his one-time sacrifice to cover all their sins. He took the place of the repetitive sacrifices in the law and made us completely acceptable before our holy and perfect Heavenly Father.
The kind of remembering that the Hebrews needed to do isn’t our normal remembering. You know what I mean. This is when insignificant, daily thoughts just blast through our memory and then to be replaced by the next memory. Just passing thoughts that are immediately replaced by the next And then the next. And the next.
We then ask ourselves, “What was that memory that I just had?” For the life of us we can’t recall the memory that we just had a few seconds ago. It was right there in the front of our memory, but it vanished. It’s on the tip of our tongue, but it’s lost forever.
Something more important is going on here. The Hebrews need to keep remembering where they were and what they’ve done. They need to keep remembering how they left the sacrifices they did over and over and replaced all that with Jesus. They had to make this remembering into a constant habit. This memory had to become part of their daily thinking and lives.
By constantly remembering what Jesus did and their receiving his sacrifice, this would eventually replace the memories and habits of making all those sacrifices. And these changes in their memories and lives had very tough consequences. They led to persecution. And why were they persecuted?
They had left the temple sacrifices and embraced the New Testament truth. For generation after generation, people went to the priests to have sacrifices made for them. They brought countless sheep, goats, cattle, birds, and other things to offer sacrifices. These ceremonies and rituals were burned into their minds. Their habits. Their culture.
They joined up with people who were being persecuted. But more than just joining a team or club, they had deep feelings for and compassion for these persecuted people. They had great sympathy for them that turned into action. They helped these poor people that were being bullied and persecuted.
This makes me ask a question: has our faith in Jesus caused any pain? Has it cost us friends? Family? Jobs? Loss of property? Pain? Loneliness? Probably not. But we need to be ready to choose Jesus above anyone and anything. We need to keep moving him up in our memory. In our priorities. When he said that he’s King of Kings and Lord of Lords, he wasn’t kidding. He alone needs to be first and foremost in our memory. In our priorities. In our daily choices.
Noodling Questions
How do you respond when someone gently nudges you? Do you do it?
What does God want us to remember about who he is and what he’s done?
When pain comes from following God, how do we feel? What’s our response?
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