In the Sacrament prayers, we covenant to “always remember” Jesus Christ. Some of us might see that word “always” and feel a great deal of pressure to make every effort to keep Jesus in our thoughts every second of the day, like Jesus is a combination lock number we repeat in our head over and over until we get to the locker so we don't forget. But always remembering is not the same thing at all as never forgetting. We don't have the capacity to keep anything in our minds constantly forever. That's not how our minds work. All sorts of thoughts flit in and out without our conscious control and often against our wishes. We remember things we would rather forget, and we forget things that we desperately need to remember. To always remember Jesus is not to beat ourselves up when we have forgotten or even forsaken our Savior through weakness or through sin. To always remember is to reach out and embrace and hold onto the memories of Jesus every time that they surface in our minds and in our hearts. When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, He asked Peter, James, and John to pray with Him. Although Jesus was right there and although Jesus chose these three men out of all of God's children to be with Him in this moment, they all fell asleep. They couldn't keep Jesus constantly in their thoughts for even one hour. But when Jesus roused them and asked them again, they didn't run away in shame of their weakness and flaws and their inability to hold Jesus in their minds and hearts for as long as they wished. What did they do, after falling asleep when they should have been thinking of Jesus? They remembered their Savior. And when they had to be woken again, they remembered again. And when they were chased off by the guards, they remembered again. We can't remember Jesus unless we first forget Him. It is inevitable that even after all of us have been given the great gift of forgiveness, we will, like the prodigal son, tell our Savior that He is dead to us and to just give us our inheritance already so that we can go and waste it as we see fit. Our Savior loves us enough to allow us to do these stupid, self-destructive things, although it breaks His heart and He stands and watches us from a long way off, hoping that after all of our stupidity and the destruction that we have invited has caught up to us, we will finally come to ourselves and remember the love and the peace that we had in our Savior's household. As soon as we remember Him and turn back to Him, our Savior runs to embrace us and welcome us back not as second class servants but as full-fledged sons and daughters. Every time we turn away in sin and rebellion but then afterwards we remember Him, He will help us get back to Him. That is what it means to always remember Him. We will almost always forget, accidentally or on purpose, but that doesn't matter so long as we then always remember.
