Long before revisionist history was a common term, Moses took great pains to warn God’s people against it. Long before technology enabled insight into the mechanisms for memory in the human mind, Moses instructed God’s people on right remembering. Long before psychologists like Dan Siegel studied and understood that what impacts us more is less what happens to us and more how we interpret and remember what happened to us, Moses gave similar advice to God’s people.

Right remembering leads to right living. As such, Moses commanded the Israelites to obey the whole commandment and remember the whole way that the Lord, their God, had led them during forty years of wilderness wandering (Deut. 8:1–2). Remembering the whole way leads to whole-hearted living. It’s far easier to remember with rose-colored glasses or forlorn frames than to remember the full story, isn’t it? Moses didn’t call them only to morose memory of only their failure and rebellion, which were quite real and rather obvious, neither did he call them to exclusively remember the mysterious taste of manna on their lips. He called them to remember both their miseries and God’s mercies, their failures and God’s faithfulness, their daily needs and his daily provision (Deut. 8: 3–5). God did let them feel their hunger and need for a month before he provided the miraculous manna which would sustain them for the remaining wilderness way. He wanted them to see their own lack and inability that they might be led to lean into his abundance and ability. They were to recall to remembrance both the pangs of hunger and the satisfaction of sated stomachs. They were to look down at their feet and see the lack of swelling–these children of those whose feet had walked through the Red Sea on dry ground yet still rushed to offer their gold to make an idol.

The whole point of remembering the whole way was whole-hearted obedience. God wanted their physical memory to teach their souls the muscle-memory of reliance upon him and him alone. Yet, they failed as miserably as their parents did and as we do.

Similar Wilderness, Different Result

Where Israel failed, Christ succeeded. In Luke 4, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days of temptation, a re-creation of Israel’s 40 days in the wilderness. It is significant to note that Jesus always responds to the temptations of Satan with Scriptures drawn directly from Deuteronomy (chapters six through ten). When tempted to make bread to satisfy his real physical hunger, Christ quotes Deuteronomy 8:3: “Man shall not live by bread alone” (Luke 4:4). Jesus remembered for our forgetting. Jesus whole-heartedly obeyed for our failure to do so. He was the true and better Israel as he was the true and better Adam (Romans 5: 12–21).

His obedience and whole-hearted devotion deserved him the lavish promises Moses had promised God’s people: a good land flowing with brooks and fountains and bread without scarcity. Yet, Christ hung on the cross, crying “I thirst” (John 19:28). His body became the bread broken to feed our souls. His feet swelled as they were nailed to the tree in place of our just punishment.

Remember the Better Manna

Jesus didn’t leave us wondering about the connections. He flat out told us that the manna in the wilderness was meant to point to him, the bread which comes down from heaven (John 6: 41–50). He said explicitly, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51).

Just as Israel was commanded to remember God’s provision of manna, the church is called to remember God’s provision of the better manna, Jesus Christ. We remember the past that we might have hope for the future. When the way ahead seems long or impossible, when the provisions around us (or within us) seem scant and lacking, when our clothes seem worn and our feet feel sore, we remember Christ (2 Timothy 2:8).

Memory & Hope

We are called to rightly remember not only God’s provision of Christ, but also the whole way God has led each of us. We are to remember his mercies alongside our miseries. We are to remember his provision even when we deserved punishment. We are even called to remember his discipline of us as sons and daughters and how it always tended to our long-term good (Deut. 8:5 ; Hebrews 12: 7–11). One my favorite commentators wrote the following regarding our personal Ebenezers (rocks set apart to help commemorate God’s real help and provision):

“So, on every rock of remembrance, every Ebenezer, on which is graved ‘Thou hast been my help,’ we can mount a telescope.”

I love the image of mounting a telescope that forecasts future hope on the rocks of remembrance from our past. Right remembering leads to future hope which leads to faithful living in the present.