Richard Davenport

November 24, 2024 – Proper 29, Last Sunday

Isaiah 51:4-6

                It’s one of those situations I’m sure we all face. You’re just going about your business when something happens, something connects in your mind and dredges up memories. Sometimes they’re happy memories, times spent with friends or family, times when things were going well and everything just clicked.  Just like the photos you have framed around your house or that pop up on your phone, they pop in our minds.  For that short time, you relive the moment, the laughter, the sunlight on your face, the snuggles, whatever the case may be.  It might only be a few seconds of time, but those details are all there and they’re yours.

                There are other moments that don’t have any real importance or emotional content attached to them.  There are a lot of memories I have that, when they come up I think, “Why do I even remember that?”  The strange way someone waved his hand, someone riding a bike, snippets of conversation, all just floating around in there.  Your brain grabs on to these moments seemingly at random and they pop up for no discernable reason.  You might reflect on them for a moment and then you let them drift away again, only to have them circle back around without warning at some point in the future. 

These memories are fairly harmless and quirky, but they do serve a purpose. They’re a reminder that you weren’t born yesterday.  You didn’t simply sprout up out of the ground as a completely clean slate with no history. You’re a person who has lived through time.  You’ve interacted with many people and done many things.  Some of those things you’ve done were momentous and important for all sorts of reasons, but many more were just points along the line that makes up your life in the world.  They may not have been all that momentous, but they still happened and you were there to experience them.  You’ve been a part of the life of this world and all of the strange or mundane things that go on here.

Then there are those other memories, the memories we really wish we didn’t remember.  There’s that time you said something when you didn’t realize who you were talking to and made an embarrassing fool of yourself.  There’s that other time you said something in anger and hurt someone’s feelings when you really didn’t mean to.  There’s that other time when you weren’t paying attention when you should have and someone got hurt as a consequence.  There are all of the other times when it wasn’t just a matter of inattention or lack of awareness, but when you were actively, eagerly doing things you knew you weren’t supposed to be doing.  When you say something in anger it might have been because the day had been one disaster after another and you’ve been extremely stressed and something just pushed you beyond your control.  It doesn’t excuse what you did, but maybe it allows for some understanding. But, when you know better and you’re charging right ahead to do it anyway, there’s really nothing to mitigate the blame. 

Now that time has passed.  Perhaps you’ve moved on and you don’t actively seek out that destructive behavior or lifestyle anymore, but you also see the damage done.  You know the people you’ve hurt.  You know how much of your life you’ve wasted.  Maybe you were able to apologize and patch things back up, but you still remember what happened and they probably do too.  It’s always there floating around and it comes back as a reminder of the terrible things you’ve done in your life, things you wish you had never done, but that there is no way to truly undo.

All of your memories, good or bad, are a part of who you are and what separate you from everyone else around.  Obviously, if you had lived a perfect life, like you were supposed to, you wouldn’t have any of those bad memories.  However many good memories you may have, the bad ones don’t simply go away because you want them to.  Like the Law that is constantly showing you your sinfulness, your memories are showing you just how shameless you can be, how apathetic, how impatient, and how stubborn you can be.  Those constant reminders are always there, telling you how terrible you are, telling you how worthless you are, how you really should just shut yourself away from the world, curl up in a ball and hope everyone forgets about you entirely. 

The passage in Isaiah speaks to a people who have a lot of explaining to do. Even after constant reminders and after some pretty harsh discipline, they still refused to listen and they got themselves into trouble.  They can see the consequences of their actions all around them.  The fact that what they did is in the past doesn’t change that they did it.  Now every time they think of God, every time they think about all that he had done for them in saving them from slavery, in giving them a land of their own, in giving them peace and prosperity, they will also think about how they had turned on him, how they had been unfaithful to him, and how they had taken all of his gifts for granted. 

There was nothing to be done about it now.  They had no one else to blame and they deserved all of the ridicule and derision that came their way.  Their memories of what they had done would come to define them and their shame would always be there.

The passage mentions God’s Law.  It mentions God’s justice and judgment.  It mentions how it will be a light to the peoples.  Everyone will see and marvel at what God has done.  That also means everyone who has offended him or insulted him will be seen for who they are.  There won’t be any hiding from it.  Like a scarlet letter, your shame won’t just be yours to remember, but will also be on display for the whole world.

That’s where the passage starts, but that isn’t where it ends.  The heavens will vanish.  The earth will wear out.  Everything crumbles and fades away, everything except God’s salvation.  The work of God isn’t intended to be focused on the past, but on the future.  There are many who are stuck in their past, who wallow in their wretchedness and their shame.  It’s all they have and it’s all they know.  For reasons of their own, they refuse to be anything but that, either because they choose to make wretchedness their goal and purpose in life or because they believe what they have done is so horrible that there is nothing that can be done about it.

When God offers forgiveness, he changes the direction.  The past is wiped away, as if it never existed.  Only the future exists now, a salvation that lasts forever.  This is who we become in Christ, people without sinful pasts and only righteous futures.  Nothing we have done can be used against us or determines our worth because in God’s records it is no longer there, a clean slate with no blemish.  It is no longer our past that determines our value, it is our future, our future in righteousness, our future in Christ, our future with God.

When Jesus sits down at the table with his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion, he passes around bread and wine, telling them that this is his body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of sins.  He tells them to do this and continue doing this in remembrance of him.  He will soon be dying for the sins of the world.  He will soon be confronting death and Satan and triumphing over them.  But it hasn’t happened yet.  While they sit around the table, Jesus isn’t directing them to remember the past, but the future.  They are to remember what is yet to come and to rejoice that they will be a part of it. 

He extends that gift to you as well, “Do this in remembrance of me,” he says. God’s salvation is forever and, for those who do remember what God has in store, they will find that their past doesn’t matter at all, only their future, their salvation.  No more law, no more shameful memories of past misdeeds. Only a bright eternity ahead.  As with Christ, the shame of the cross is left behind and there is only the joyful resurrection to look forward to.

It's with this in mind that we celebrate Our Redeemer’s 60th anniversary.  I’ve only been here for a small portion of that.  Many of you have been here for quite a bit longer.  You’ve seen the ups and downs here.  Though the congregation aims to worship God and serve our neighbor, that isn’t always what happens.  At some point or other, each of us has done things that we aren’t proud of, that brought shame on the church and tarnished God’s name.  Hopefully, when you did, you owned up to it and sought forgiveness and reconciliation.  But even when you do, the memory is still there.  It still condemns and shames.  The memories of who we are as individual Christians and as the church in this place can be hard to let go of because Satan keeps bringing them back.

But, what is true of the individual is true of God’s people as a whole.  We are not judged by where we have come from but by where we are going.  We are all sinners here.  None of us is perfect, but one day we will be.  We will be because we trust in God’s eternal salvation.  This Sunday in particular, we remember the future. Christ’s death has already happened. Christ’s resurrection has already happened.  These things that Christ has done in the past have made the future possible for us.  We do not need to wonder whether it will ever come to pass, because God’s promises always do.  We need only remember that it will, and wait with joyful expectation for that day to come.