Little Memorials
Or remembering is not always the opposite of forgetting
I had a friend nudge me with some advice a few days ago. It was a well-timed, well-placed nudge and even more she was totally right. Sometimes those things don’t always intersect, but this was one of those beautiful moments when the Spirit of God spoke through her with a clarity that landed right in my lap.
She said go deeper.
In this instance she was referring to my work on We Have This Hope and the challenge was to keep swimming toward the deeper waters because she’d noticed that I had been paddling around the surface of a lot of thoughts—specifically about remembering. I knew immediately what she meant and I knew I had to go there, but going there often costs a bit of vulnerability and the possibility that I could get something wrong—eww, I don’t even like typing that. But for the sake of humility, I’ll leave it on the page and say, go with me. To the deeper waters where we might get it wrong, but where we will ask God to help us and we’ll float on our backs and look to the sun if we need a break.
A few weeks ago we leaned into what the Old Testament says about remembering. We talked about God remembering and calling the people to do the same. I introduced us to the Hebrew word zāḵar (H2142) which on a very basic level means exactly what we think it means: to call to mind, to think on, to bring to remembrance. Each time the people of God would zāḵar, their perspective and their actions would be re-anchored to the God of the universe and suddenly they could operate with wisdom again. It makes sense to me—the cycle of forgetting God and then coming back to him. I can place myself in the Old Testament narratives because I’ve been one who like the Israelites has forgotten what God has done and built idols to myself or the things around me. I’ve been the one with ashes on my forehead when those idols couldn’t hold my grief and couldn’t answer my questions. It was God alone who held me together through my own trial and error. Yes, we should zāḵar God. You don’t have to tell me twice.
The mystery still lingering in my mind has been why does God remember and what in the world does that even mean?
If he is omniscient—he knows all things—then why would he need to zāḵar? To answer these questions with me, you’ll have to put on your Bible nerd hat, the one you used a few weeks ago when we talked about the role of recorder in the royal courts of Israel’s kings. Zāḵar is mostly used throughout the Hebrew Bible as a verb. It is an action the people are called to do and one that God models for them, but like most words this verb originates from a noun. In our case zāḵar is a denominative verb from the noun found in most resources as H2145—it’s also zāḵar, but by definition it means “male, as being he through whom the memorial of parents is continued…”1 Wait, this precious word we’ve been studying as remember also means male? If that seems strange to you, then you’re tracking with me and please hang in there—the rabbit hole shall bear fruit.
We find this peculiar noun in a very familiar place in scripture: Genesis 1.
“So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.”(Genesis 1:27, NIV, emphasis mine)
In the grand narrative of Genesis, the Hebrew author uses our word zāḵar in relationship to God’s creation of man.2 When I first discovered this, I was perplexed and reached out to my friend who has studied far more Hebrew than me. She pointed to a few more resources and helped shape my thinking on this passage.3 Recall that the noun form of zāḵar holds the idea of children being a memorial to their parents. If we go one step further, we remind ourselves that memorials are meant to honor and reflect—they always point to something that we ought to remember. When the Hebrew author uses this idea in relationship to mankind bearing the image of God in creation, I can’t help but wonder if God has woven remembering into the very fabric of our being.
Are we little memorials to him—little zāḵars? I think so.
This kind of remembering is not the opposite of forgetting—I don’t believe that God forgets—but rather this kind of remembering is creational. It’s image-bearing and kingdom-building, the zāḵar we were quite literally made to emulate.
Recently my teenage nephew was staying at our house for the evening. This is not an uncommon occurrence—he’s stayed many nights with us over the last 8 years or so—but this one sticks out in my mind as I think about image-bearing. He bee-bopped across the living room and into the kitchen with a stride that stirred in me something fierce—his mother. She walked and talked and waved her hands in the very same purposeful, yet somehow absent-minded nature that he still does. He’s bearing her image, a walking memorial to my sister, and he really doesn’t even know it. For me, on the other hand, the one who shares the most genetics with her than anyone, I can catch a glimpse of her in the mirror just in passing by. I can make her expressions and impersonate her mannerisms in way that makes my husband say: “You just sounded exactly like Lauren.” Isn’t it just like grief to be throat-catching and wildly comforting at the same time?
I share this only to ponder things like how many of us are walking around bearing the image of our Creator and not even realizing it? God seems to have implanted in us aspects of his perfect self that can bee-bop through a kitchen. What does this say about the innate value of people? What does this say about my value as a walking zāḵar to God? And for those of us who claim to know and love him—who can catch a glimpse of him in the mirror so to speak—how does this inform our living?
This brings me back to the idea conveyed in zāḵar (defined as both remembering and as a memorial). It seems to me that when God remembers, it is not a means by which he avoids forgetting, as if he were not the all-knowing God who created time and space, but rather as a means by which he reflects and replicates his very nature into creation. He’s building memorials to himself—holding things up as if to say this is the way it should be—and he’s invited us into the process. Perhaps we ought to evaluate how we feel about ourselves in this fresh light. We should feel deeply loved and deeply valued. Or perhaps we ought to do a quick survey of what little memorials we’re replicating. Does our work, whatever work may be to us, offer the world more of the creative and beautiful work of God or is it all just built on sand?
This week as we do our living and working may we do so with a spirit of remembering, the kind that reflects God’s image into a world that longs for it. May we catch a glimpse of our Creator in the mirror as we bee-bop through the kitchen and may this empower us to do the good work of building God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Thanks for making it all the way to the bottom! If you’ve read something that left you with questions or stirrings, please let me know or share in the comments. This essay is meant to encourage your thinking and I greatly value your feedback.
For any fellow Bible nerds, the first word translated as “man” in Genesis 1:27 is the familiar H0120 a.dam, the second time translated as “male” is H2145 zāḵar. (God created a.dam in his image…zāḵar and female he created them…) Something like that.
LOVE.
"Perhaps we ought to evaluate how we feel about ourselves in this fresh light. We should feel deeply loved and deeply valued. Or perhaps we ought to do a quick survey of what little memorials we’re replicating. Does our work, whatever work may be to us, offer the world more of the creative and beautiful work of God or is it all just built on sand?"
You know that this is exactly the question I'm asking right now. And much like your hesitancy to be vulnerable in going deeper, I'm hesitant to have to stop and really ask and answer this question. It's so much easier to just float along. But here I am, highlighting and copy/pasting and pondering.