Today, January 27, marks World Holocaust Day, a day that we are to be intentional about remembering the victims and lives that have been forever changed not only by the Holocaust but also by the subsequent genocides throughout the world. It is not enough to remember these people and events as history, something or someone from the past. We must remember as a present reality, for that is what it is.

We must remember and then confess that we have denied God’s goodness in each other, in ourselves, in the world, and repent of the evil we have done and the evil done on our behalf.

We must remember and then choose to care, to be involved, to make a difference. If we do not there will be no one left who will.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

– Pastor Martin Niemoller

We must remember and then do what the Lord requires of us; to do justice, and love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8).

We must remember the faces, the lives, the stories, the suffering; for we are one in Christ.