Today is a Sunday to remember, a
day to remember those dear ones who’ve gone on before us in the faith. When
we’re young our list seems pretty short maybe even non existent, but one of
the realities of life is that the older we get the longer our list. Surely
on our list today are grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, siblings even
children, not to mention the countless dear friends whose paths we’ve
crossed through the years. It strikes me that in our collective remembering
today, we share something in common with the stunning vision John reports in
the Book of Revelation. “After this I looked and there was a great
multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and
peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed
in white, with palm branches in their hands.” Hearing the words reminds me
of one of those big group photos that comes rolled up in a cardboard tube,
one where everyone lines up so that the camera can slowly take in the shot
from one side to the other. Can you imagine, how much film, how wide a
lens, how big a tube you’d need to capture the image—a great multitude that
no one can count? “Let anyone with an ear listen to what the Spirit
is saying."
It’s been said that death is the great
equalizer. Like the people we remember today, like the white robed
multitude that no one can count, we’re all going to die someday. And I
suppose in our own way one of the deep, abiding hopes we have is that when
our time comes we will be remembered—our faces, our names, the joy that we
shared with those we love, that maybe in some small way our lives will have
had some sort of lasting impact.
I suppose it comes as no surprise to you that
a guy like me spends more time in cemeteries than most other people who
count themselves among the living. It might sound strange, but whenever I
find myself at a cemetery, waiting for the family and friends to arrive I
often take a look at the nearby gravestones, at the names, the span of lives
and whatever other information someone felt compelled to include—“Beloved
Father and World War II Veteran”, “Loving Mother and Wife”, “a child never
forgotten”. Judging by the assortment of flowers, teddy bears and notes
adorning some graves it’s pretty clear to me just how much some folks
continue to mean to their loved ones. At the same time, I’m also struck by
the older grave stones you often find towards the back of the cemetery, the
ones from years, even decades ago that appear worn and chipped and on which
the names are faded and sometimes hard to read, a place that no one has
apparently visited in a long time.
The first congregation I served had its own
cemetery just outside of town. At one time it had been a public cemetery
for the whole town. In the office, there was a master plat that listed all
the current occupants’ names, that is except for one section at the very
back that no one knew anything about. When you walked back there, you could
clearly see the outline of a dozen or so plots, but apparently the records
had been lost somewhere along the way and anyone who might still remember
was long gone. Sadly, like so many others, the occupants of that little
stretch of real estate are long forgotten.
A week ago, Friday Jenny and I were in Gruene
to meet some of classmates from TLU and their families for a dinner
celebrating their 20th class reunion. We got there a little
early and had some time to wander through some of the interesting shops
there. Our last stop before supper was the big antique emporium right
across the street from the Gruene Hall. There we saw all kinds of high
priced furniture, porcelain dishes, fine crystal and even an old giant
Piggly Wiggly Head that had been rescued from some grocery store in east
Texas that was slated for demolition. (I actually thought it might make a
nice conversation piece for my office.) But what really caught my attention
was a little cigar box full of old, old postcard photos and snapshots of
plain, old everyday people—wedding pictures, family portraits, images of
smart looking soldiers getting ready to go off to war. Where were they
married? What was life like for them, easy or difficult? Did that smart
looking soldier ever make it home again? Do they now lie in some forgotten
place, where weeds grow and no one remember? Sort of makes you wonder how
long any of us will be remembered. At what point in distant future will the
day come there’s no one left to remember.
Who are they and where did they come from?
It’s the question meant to spark memory, the question on John’s mind as he
tries to make sense of the fantastic and famous vision for which he is so
well known. “Who are these robed in white and where have they come from?”
Well the immediate answer is they are more than likely members of the
early church who have endured great suffering and violence in the name of
the emperor who demanded the undivided worship and attention. But as
commentator Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza suggests, the sheer scope of this
multitude beyond number, from every tribe, nation and language indicates
that it may well include all those “who have suffered the violence of the
great tribulation, war, hunger, pestilence, death and persecution.” In our
day and age, John might well be referring to the people of Iraq, to those in
Sub-Saharan Africa living in indescribable poverty, or even those who
continue to suffer as a result of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, people whose
find themselves in situations so desperate, so full of despair that they
wonder if God has forgotten them, if perhaps death wouldn’t be a better
alternative to the a life of constant suffering and misery.
Is there anything more terrifying than the
fear of not being remembered, of flying forgotten as a dream dies at the
opening day? I think not! But in a world where memory fails and hope
grows dim there is one who remembers, who knows us even to the hairs on our
head, who with the Lamb comes to save us. That one is the Lord our God to
whom “blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and
might belongs forever and ever.” Sound familiar to you? If you’ve been
paying attention during worship, it surely ought to sound familiar to you.
It’s our song as we prepare to experience the great mystery of Christ’s
presence in bread and wine, his body and blood, broken and shed for us, for
you and for me. As we gather around the table today and hear the names of
loved ones now gone read aloud we’re reminded of how we are connected with
all the saints, the great multitude of God’s people in every time and
generation among whom we too are numbered through our own baptism into Jesus
Christ. It’s the promise that we shall not be forgotten, that God will
never, never going to let us go.
And God’s promise isn’t just for the future,
but for today too. In Christ there is hope and life for those who live in
darkness and the shadow of death. “And the Lamb will guide them to springs
of the water of life and, and God will wipe away every tear from their
eyes.” With the dawn of each and every new day, we are called, invited back
into the cool refreshing springs of baptismal water where ours sins are
washed away and raised up as new creations in Christ, as those who know the
love the Father has given us. As we await the day when we too will take our
place among the great multitude standing before the throne, there will still
be occasions for tears and sorrow. We’ll still stumble and fall. We’ll
still be confronted by the world’s sin and brokenness not to mention our
own. But in Christ, tears and sorrow, Sin and brokenness are not the
realities that finally shape who we are. Neither is judgment and
condemnation God’s final Word for us and for our world as if salvation were
in our hands. No, “salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the
throne, and to the Lamb!” The God of love will stop at nothing to bring us
all to that place of “rest beyond the river”.
Who are these robed in white and
where have they come from? We may not know them
all, but God does, just as he knows you and me. We come from many places,
but at last the song remains the same. “Salvation belongs to our God.”
Now, in the song that knows no end, let us sing. Amen.
Pastor Brian Peterson
