On a
recent short vacation, Fred and I visited a cemetery in south-central
Pennsylvania that is situated next to a historic log church. Since the church
wasn’t open for us to tour, we had to settle for pressing our noses against the
old window glass to peer inside. Then, wanting to linger just a little bit
longer, we wandered through the graveyard and admired the artwork on the
gravestones. Many of those stones are very plain, just an upright slab with a
name and the years of birth and death; while others are much more elaborate.
These contain ornate scrollwork around their edges; and some even have tiny angels
that hover above the name of the deceased. All of them, though, whether plain or elaborate, are there for
the same reason: as a reminder of a life so that it is not forgotten. The reality
is, however, that no matter how many gravestones we put up, and no matter how
large or elaborate they are, almost everyone will one day be forgotten. Some
people, of course, who have made huge contributions to our society – people like
the Wright brothers and Mother Teresa – will be remembered for centuries. But
most of us won’t be so lucky. In time, all of us will be just names on gravestones;
and even our great-great-great grandchildren will wonder about who we were and
what we did. “Hmmmm…” they will say. “I wonder what kind of person she was. Was
she a good person or a jerk? Did she contribute to society, or was she a
freeloader? Did she love her kids? Take in stray dogs? Pay the bills on time?”
And they won’t know the answers to those questions any more than we know the
answers to questions that we have about our own distant ancestors.
Now, I
will be happy to have my faults forgotten. But the thought of one day being
only a name on a grave marker is really depressing. We all want to be
remembered; and we all deserve to be
remembered! But here’s the good news: although we humans might forget the
people who came before us, God doesn’t. God is in the business of remembering! Why,
the Bible is full of instances of God remembering things that other people had
completely forgotten. In the midst of a flood that grew to cosmic proportions, when
it looked like the waters would never recede – and when no one else was around
to remember anything – God remembered Noah and his family and all the animals
in the ark; and God sent a wind to push back those waters (Genesis 8:1). When
Jacob’s wife Rachel had given up all hope that she would ever bear a child, God
remembered her, and she gave birth to Joseph, the one who rose to power in
Egypt and saved his family through seven years of drought (Genesis 30:22-24). And
when the Hebrews were suffering in slavery in Egypt, God remembered his
covenant with Abraham (Exodus 2:23-25), and appointed Moses to help lead all of
them to freedom.
God
doesn’t forget anyone – not one person who has ever lived! That may be way beyond
our human capabilities, but it isn’t beyond God’s. We may not know the names of
all the saints who live eternally in God’s presence, but God knows them! God
knows my grandfather Will and my great-aunt Helen. God knows your
great-great-grandmother, and that ancestor who was legendary for being generous
with his time and his money, even though you were never quite sure of his name.
God knows your brave ancestor who boarded a sailing ship with only a Bible and
the clothes on her back and traveled to this country to find freedom and
opportunity, even though you never knew anything about her. God not only knows our
ancestors who are just names on gravestones to us; God is on a first-name basis
with them!
God
will never forget us, either. We are part of God’s memory just as surely as all
the other saints down through history have been. None of us will ever be just a
name on a neglected gravestone to God. Our promised destiny is to live in God’s
presence eternally, as surely as God has promised to be a part of our lives in
life and in death. So don’t worry if you don’t remember the names of all the
saints in your life. God will never forget even one of them.
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