If you want to imagine the look on Moses’ face as he stood on the banks of the Jordan River and stared over at the ‘Promised Land,’ tell your grandmother you are planning a Spring Break trip to ‘Vegas with a few friends.
I haven’t made it to Las Vegas… yet. It’s on my list of places to visit, if for no other reason than to say I’ve seen it. I’m sure there are lovely things there: churches full of good Christian folk, ministries serving and uplifting their communities, schools and playgrounds full of innocent children laughing at play, puppies and kittens, an awesome cheeseburger… Sure, we’ve all heard the warnings about gambling, drugs, alcohol, prostitution and human trafficking, gang violence, mass shootings, and more unpleasantries; however, I’m certain there are many redeeming qualities of that ol’ “Sin City” in the desert. Without something really good, why would people endure all the bad?
However…
My gut tells me that Las Vegas is the kind of place where it might be possible to forget the kind of person you are back home. In a city with such an abundance of food, booze, and gambling and such a dearth of morality, judgement, and modesty, it would be very easy to forget who you are and become someone else for a long weekend. I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” It’s easier to be someone or act in a way other than who you are at home, (other than the person your grandmother knows) when you allow yourself to forget that person in a new environment.
For the Hebrews, the ‘Promised Land’ was just such a place.
Moses stood on the banks of the Jordan River, overlooking the prize he’d waited 40 years to see. Behind him, and all around him, all of Israel waited for instruction. Generations of Hebrews had died on the long journey out of bondage in Egypt, replaced and multiplied in the new life that had been birthed during the years of the Exodus. This was no longer a people who remembered the bitterness of slavery, and yet they still weren’t a people accustomed to so much freedom.
As Moses began what would be a very lengthy instruction to the people before they crossed into the ‘Promised Land,’ one word loomed louder than the rest: “Remember.”
“Remember the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Exodus 20:2 NIV)
One might think of the idea of ‘remembering’ as simple nostalgia, recalling a previous time or place, sharing stories faded over time and sepia-toned in our mind’s-eye. This is not the sort of remembering Moses had in mind. Rather than the quaint suggestion to call up an old memory, Moses commands Israel to bring the pain and hardship of their ancestors back among their collective memory as a warning concerning their past and a caution to illumine their future. Without being able to do this hard work of truly remembering, they were very likely to fall back into bondage to a lifestyle modeled on Egypt’s endless work and production cycle. In the land of abundance to which they were about to enter, it would be easy to forget past hardships, and the danger would be in their inadvertent sin of a new kind of rest-less slavery to constant production.
Moses’ warning echoes throughout the centuries: “Remember!”
What do you need to remember during this season of Lent? Or, rather, what about Lent will you need to remember in the days and weeks following Easter? Will the abundance of the resurrection, the fullness of salvation cause you to loosen the standards of your faith you’ve cultivated during this season?
Remember the LORD your God. Be strong in the faith, take heart in your redemption, and remember where you come from, regardless of the zip-code you find yourself in this Spring Break or any season.
And enjoy a blessed sabbath rest.
J.M.D.