"Anamnesis" - An Easter Sunday reflection from Rev. Dr. Christy Newton

When I was in seminary at Pacific School of Religion, then Spirituality Professor and Dean of DSF Joe Driskill taught me the Greek word anamnesis. It is often translated as remembering, but its meaning is more precisely bringing the past forward into the present. Literally, it is fighting “against amnesia.” Joe shared this concept in the context of communion, the weekly ritual when we Disciples remember the Last Supper before Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection, the ritual when we hear Jesus say, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

“What does it mean,” Joe asked, “to bring that moment from the past forward into the present?”

The events leading up to Easter — Jesus’s teachings and journey, the entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the betrayal, the crucifixion, the waiting, the resurrection and post-resurrection appearances — these events might be easy for many of us to recite by heart. We remember and hold onto those sacred stories. But what the original Greek anamnesis implies — and what Joe Driskill taught me — was that this remembering is not merely looking back and reminiscing; it is actively drawing inspiration forward into the present moment and refusing to forget. There is an element of justice involved.

All around us these days, we face corruption, greed, selfishness, apathy, exploitation. Lies are trotted out as truth. War is paraded as peace. Empathy is denigrated as sin. These are forces that strive endlessly to make us forget the good news of Easter; they want to erase our memories of Jesus and the revolution he dynamically generates in our hearts and in our world. They want us to forget. They demand that we leave the past in the past. But if we forget, the lies are free to take hold. And the lies get bigger and more dangerous and more violent. They consume everything in their way. They destroy and call it blessing. They exclude and call it love.

Anamnesis calls the past forward and actively remembers the hope and promise of the risen Jesus with vigor and urgency and purpose in this moment. Anamnesis directs us to fight the lies directly as if facing an adversary. It means we remember boldly, rising up, embodying resistance. Refusing to forget.

Easter is more than a day; it is a season. So, during this season, I invite you to remember courageously, dangerously, truthfully with me. Remember Jesus. Remember goodness. Remember compassion. Remember empathy. Remember justice. Remember the loving community God calls us to be.

---

Rev. Dr. Christy Newton is the Executive Director at DSF. She is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister and leads retreats and teaches seminary courses in the areas of social ethics, leadership formation, spirituality, globalization, and culture. She is energized by practical and public theologies that insist on hospitality, justice, and compassion, and she is relentlessly inspired to help individuals and communities find ways to sustain their prophetic voices in a difficult and polarized world.