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III . God’s Remembrance
about the Eucharist at the time of the Reformation, the prevailing question was in what way the Eucharist ought to be related to the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. This has also been the dominant theme in all dogmatic manuals dealing with the Eucharist—Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant—ever since. The relation of the Eucharist with the eschatological Kingdom that we find in biblical and early liturgical eucharistic texts seems to have disappeared in the course of history. The Eucharist is, in the consciousness of contem- porary believers, a remembrance of the past, not of the future.
III. God’s Remembrance
What does “remembering” or anamnesis mean in a eucharistic context? In our common usage, remembering carries basically a psy- chological meaning: it signifies an act of our imagination, a mental recollection of a person, a thing, or an event. As such it bears no on- tological meaning; it does not refer to a reality but to a personal thought or feeling. Remembering someone or something does not bring about their presence; it does not render them actual and truly existing.
Biblical research in our time has pointed out that the verb “to remember,” which is used in the Bible frequently, indicated some- thing more than a mental recollection of a person or an event; it was intended to effect something, to create an event.23 This is particularly the case when the verb is used about God, but it applies also con- versely to humans in their relation to God. The Old Testament, par- ticularly the book of Deuteronomy (5:14; 7:18; 8:2; etc.), develops what may be called a theology of remembering,24 and the same is true of the New Testament. God remembers his covenant (Lk 1:72) precise- ly in bringing about its fulfilment in Christ, and when he remembers the iniquities of Babylon (Rev 18:5) he applies his eschatological judg- ment. Christ’s remembering of the thief on the Cross means no less than his entrance into the Kingdom (Lk 23:42). Equally, when God
23 O. Michel, “μιμνήσκομαι,” in G. Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testa- ment, vol. IV, trans. and ed. G. W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967), pp. 675–678.
24 Michel, “μιμνήσκομαι,” p. 675.
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