Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

In my opinion, the purpose of remembering is to allow us to progress. That is, we remember so that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. This, I am afraid, is easier said than done. Although memory can be categorised and subdivided, essentially, for all humanity, there are broadly two type of memory; short-term and long-term memory.  Long-term memory retains information about certain procedures we repeat, such riding a bike, brushing your teeth, combing your hair and so on. Whereas, with short-term memory, information is retained that is specific to a task, like revising for an exam and so on. This is a very complex and intriguing subject, but it is the ability to remember, that allows us to be fully human. There are certain events in our lives that remain forever. The neuroscientists call these flash-bulb memory events. Like the death of Martin Luther King Jr., or the destruction of the twin towers in New York. These events stick in our minds and are transferred from our short-term to our long-term memory.

Although we are encouraged to forget the pain of the past, we never really jettison them. However, like Joseph in Genesis 37-52, we learn to deal with them by implementing a process of forgiving. I am convinced that this is the only process that brings healing, deliverance and restoration.  It is the ability to be able to connect with the past, which gives us a sense of continuity. For many of us, our history is misrepresented, misconstrued and sidelined; therefore, we have little connectivity with our past. And so unwittingly, we repeat and continue to repeat many of the mistakes our fore-parents made.

In sum, we thank God for the liberating act of Jesus, who died for us, and gave us [humanity] the opportunity to be free by becoming the curse for all (see Galatians 3:13). By the way when we are singing, Hosanna, Hosanna, we are in fact singing ‘freedom, freedom’, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Thank you Jesus that, we can remember what you did for all of us! We as African Caribbean were airbrushed out of contemporary history, but you remember everything about us.

Read  Genesis 50:15-21 and Galatians 3:6-14 and meditate.