Remember, lest we forget.  This “creed” underlies much of Jewish and Christian culture.  All of the LORD’s holidays are to remember His mighty acts of redemption, based on bringing His people out of Egypt.  Believers in Jesus, in fellowshipping in the Lord’s Supper, do so to remember Yeshua and what He did in and through His death on the cross; and we are to do so until He comes again.  God has given us these times of remembrance together so that we might not forget, and to be strengthened in our bond as His family and people.

Tonight, Israel — especially the Jewish people within her — began the annual Holocaust Remembrance/Memorial Day, till now the most devastating blow of destruction to hit the Jewish people.  I say “till now”, because it seems to me that there is a greater ‘Shoah’ still to come.  It could be said that the Inquisition was Sephardic Jewry’s trouble, and that the Holocaust Ashkenazi Jewry’s trouble.  Both of these occurred on European soil.  But the Scriptures speak of an unparalleled “Jacob’s Trouble” — great tribulation — to come “in the land” — the whole House of Jacob/Israel — out of which Israel will be saved. (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1, Zec 13:7-9; Mt 24:4-31; Rev 7:14)

It is important to keep the Holocaust’s remembrance, especially at a time when many deny it, minimize it, relativize it.  There are still living eye-witnesses and their family members who know it was true and horrible.  These eye-witnesses are both among the victims and among the perpetrators.  Yet there are those who are given a loud voice to say otherwise.  Is this really any different than those who were strident in denying the real death and resurrection of the Lord Messiah, even while eye-witnesses were still around?! (Mt 27:62 – 28:15; 2Pt 1:12-18)  As Israel puts their hope in the ability of the nation to defend itself, the God of Israel is at work to bring His people to repentance and faith in His Son, who is truly the Keeper of Israel.

The sacrifice of Yeshua is described in Greek as a holocaust — a whole-burnt offering.  While the unwilling catastrophic destruction on the part of the  Jewish people has led to the partial prophetic restoration of the modern homeland for the Jewish people back in their land, the willing sacrificial “slaughter” of the Lamb of God leads to salvation and eternal life in God’s Kingdom for all who believe.