drink to remember

Last year I took some guys camping, kind of a men’s retreat. It was a manly campout—lots of fire, lots of smoke, lots of meat, and a little ale. Oh, and shotguns. Yeah. Our theme was the journey of desire. We talked about how desire is essential for the Christian life, even how Jesus’ style of evangelism could be called evangelism of desire (“Come to me all you who are thirsty…”). We also talked about the dangers of desire. Dare we desire? And we talked about desire gone bad. We talked about the Divine Thwarter , how God intentionally blocks our desires, frustrating our attempts to find heaven on earth, drawing us to Him (I always think of that angel sentry guarding the way to Tree of Life with a flaming sword flashing back and forth). And we talked about mishandling desires. And oh are desires mishandled. Afterwards, I had kind of a revelation on a verse in the Bible that I had talked about around the campfire. It’s in the book of Proverbs. Chapter 31. So I sent this message out to the guys, and it went like this…

I just had a revelation going back to our campout, and it’s blowing my mind, so I thought I would see if I could blow yours as well. You’ll remember when I quoted from Proverbs 31,

Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.

We talked about the narcotic of pleasure, how “pleasure isn’t nearly so much about true enjoyment as it is about anesthetizing ourselves.” Mostly when people drink it is to forget their poverty and misery. Ask any recovering alcoholic why he drank and he will tell you, “I drank to feel normal like everybody else.” Drinking made him forget that he was inadequate, that he didn’t have what it takes, and how miserable he truly was. Those drinks did not create joy, but suspended misery. They made him forget how impoverished he felt in his soul.

I came to the very edge of saying something but withdrew because Brent earlier had made a comment about the song Hotel California (something about evil song, drug-trip-inspired). But the thought has come back to me:

Some drink to remember
Some drink to forget

Ok. Is that not the test of purification of our desires? It is certainly not wrong to drink wine (“all thing are permissible” and “do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink”) and Jesus himself “came eating and drinking”, but why? I can’t imagine that Jesus drank to forget, but rather He drank to remember. He drank to remember the eternal joy that is only echoed in this place we live.

Praise the Lord, O my soul…

He makes grass grow for the cattle,
  and plants for man to cultivate—
  bringing forth food from the earth:
wine that gladdens the heart of man,
  oil to make his face shine,
  and bread that sustains his heart.
The trees of the LORD are well watered,
  the cedars of Lebanon that he planted… (Psalm 104)

Each time Jesus took wine, bread, and oil, did He not remember His home? Every time Jesus healed someone did he not remember what it was like in the New Jerusalem? Every party, every banquet, every deliverance, each scourge, every moment He spent with His Father in solitude, every adventure that Jesus set out on was to remember His Father’s joy, not to forget His own misery.

And He made that available to us. Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” Jesus wasn’t giving instructions on how to drink from one cup, but from every cup, nor how to partake of one body, but everybody. In every “drink” we take and every “body” we receive we are to remember Christ, to remember our Life that has come but is coming. We use the word adventure and think of many things, but isn’t adventure simply the word for what becomes of our desires? We desire something so we go on an adventure. And every adventure we embrace, whether within or without institutional walls, we are either drinking to remember or drinking to forget. I like the way Jude left it.

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. (Jude 17-21)

Isn’t my attempt to forget just following the instincts of my fallen nature? And isn’t my attempt to remember just keeping myself in God’s love as I wait for eternal life? Lord, help me to remember and not forget. I will drink the cup you drink and be baptized with the baptism you are baptized with. I am longing for a better country—a heavenly one. I want to follow the example of Christ—whether I eat or drink or whatever I do, I want it to be to remember your glory, not to forget my shame. I’ll be remembering you.