“Also, I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant.” Exodus 6:5
The immediate context of these verses is that Moses, now in Egypt with Aaron, has proclaimed to the people of Israel that their deliverance is coming and that he will speak to Pharoah. The unexpected result was that Pharoah, instead of letting the people go, actually increased the work burden, and suffering of the people. Moses is dejected and asks God why He sent him all this way if this is the result. God responds that He has heard the suffering of His people, He has remembered His covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and it is time to act in terms of that covenant. Of course, we know the glorious rest of the story.
After the Exodus, God instituted three yearly feasts: the Passover to remember the Exodus, Pentecost to remember the giving of the law at Sinai, and Tabernacles to remember the wilderness wanderings. For Israel a remembrance was not just a mental activity calling to mind what God did so many years ago. These feasts were celebrations involving singing, sacrifice, eating, drinking, and activities like blood on doorposts and building tents to live in for a few weeks. It meant that the worshippers themselves participated in these great saving acts of God in the past. The feasts were not just remembering what God did but they were a covenant renewal, asking God to remember His covenant and saving activity in the past and act now on their behalf as His covenant people in the present.
Circumcision was the sign that you were in covenant with God in the Old Testament. The whole sacrificial system and particularly the three yearly feasts were an ongoing renewal of that covenant, a remembrance. Baptism is the sign that you are in covenant with God in the New Covenant. Communion is the ongoing renewal of that covenant, which is why when instituting the Lord’s Supper Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Every week by participating in communion we call to mind God’s great redemptive acts throughout history for His people as if we had been there ourselves. We participate not only in the great acts of deliverance of the Old Covenant like the flood or the Exodus but more importantly in what those great works were meant to foreshadow. The greatest saving act of God is the Cross. Every week we participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and call to mind the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf as members of the New Covenant. Every week we ask God to continue His great saving work for us as His covenant people in the present and to act on our behalf as He has done in the past.
So as the Lord spoke to Moses, every week the Lord says to us, those who participate in communion, “I have heard your groanings, your suffering. I see your enemies who oppress you; and I have remembered My covenant. Now watch and see what I will do.”
His mercy endures forever!
Pastor Flynn