“Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”
— Luke 24: 6-7
Your memories can restore your life. Remembering what you see, touch and hear can get you through the tough times in your life. Sometimes, we can only move ahead by looking back.
Today, I am looking back at Easter. During this past Lenten season, I noticed a television commercial, a pitch for a device used for storing and playing recorded music. The commercial is titled “Dad’s Favorite Song.”
In that commercial, a father plays his favorite song for his tiny daughter. You see the young girl listening to her dad’s favorite song at different stages of her life.
The commercial ends with the girl at the beginning of her college years. She is in that time of transition, a time that can be occasioned by loneliness and fear. The new college student finds a remedy for her anxious feelings and fears.
The song is a 1973 recording from Rod Stewart’s early band. It contains the lyrics: “I wish I knew what I know now — when I was younger.”
In this commercial, the antidote to loneliness is a voice command to the device that begins to play her father’s favorite song. As “dad’s favorite song” begins to play, she is able to rest with a smile of recognition on her face. Your memories can give you peace in the presence of anxiety.
“I wish I knew what I know now — when I was younger.” Some things seem meaningless, even boring, when we first hear them. But later on, they can make all the positive difference in the world. It is as if we could say to ourselves: “Back then, this wasn’t meaningful or useful to me, but now it means the world.”
I cannot begin to count all the things during childhood I was told — things that I thought irrelevant. But later on those things turned out to be great wisdom. I am reminded of Robert Fulgham’s book, “All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten.” The lessons of childhood contain gems of wisdom like the following:
Put things where you found them.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
We are told some things that come in handy many years later, but we do not realize their importance at the time.
In the late 1970s, a number of American citizens were kidnapped and held hostage by radical revolutionaries in the nation of Iran. One of the captives was a woman named Kathryn Koob. She was held captive for 444 days.
Koob was raised in a Christian home where she was taught the Scriptures, Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, and how to practice grace-filled living. After she was freed from Iranian bondage, she often talked about how the faith lessons she had learned as a child sustained her during that long, frightening time of captivity.
Among those lessons was Jesus imperative “Love your enemies.” She knew Jesus promised to never leave us or forsake us.
Remembering the promises of Christ can make a huge difference in how we experience setbacks, sadness and suffering.
Looking back at Luke’s narration of the first Easter, we see some women who were grieving the horror and disappointment of Jesus’ death. As far as these women know, death has had the last word and this sad world will never change. But these usual expectations are reversed and the women begin to experience God’s amazing grace.
The women find the tomb empty and they see and hear angelic messengers who announce that Jesus has been raised from death. These angelic messengers then give the women an important order. They tell the women to “remember.”
“Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee … .”
The messengers then recall Jesus’ prediction of his suffering, death and his rising from death. The women are told to “remember” Jesus foretelling his death and the new life that would follow that death.
It is instructive that “Galilee” has come to symbolize “the springtime” of Jesus’ ministry while “Jerusalem” has served as a metaphor for his “winter” of suffering and death. Remember what you see and hear in the springtime of your life; it will come in handy when winter of your life arrives.
I remember the classic now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep bedtime prayer that my parents helped me to memorize as a child. For a number of years, I stopped praying it because I considered it to be a little childish and corny.
But as I’ve grown older, I find I have said forms of that same prayer many times in my life when I have been challenged, afraid, in trouble. I now take great comfort in that kind of simple prayer.
Luke’s Gospel shows us that when Jesus was dying on the cross, he prayed a prayer that scholars say was a common Jewish bedtime prayer: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
A simple childhood prayer. But remembering the promise behind such prayers can make all the difference when you are facing the cold, deep snow in the winters of life. A simple memory can bring the touch of spring in spite of winter’s grip.
We could all use a touch of warm spring in the cold winters of our lives. That touch of spring is what those women received from the announcement over the empty grave of Jesus:
“Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee … .”
The girl in the television commercial gets a touch of spring when hearing her father’s favorite song and it gives her peace.
Kathryn Koob received a touch of spring when remembering Sunday school lessons, Luther’s Small Catechism and the New Testament promises of Christ.
Are you in the middle of a winter experience in your life? Then, remember.
Remember the promise of Jesus to never leave us nor forsake us. Have you never heard that word or that song of grace? Then, I invite you to put yourself within earshot of the Gospel.
Talk to a trusted Christian friend and come to worship, where you can hear the message of God’s unconditional love. God loves you. God wants you to hear and be touched by grace so that you will not forget, when winter comes.
As you walk on the ice and snow of despair, the promise of God can put a little spring in your step.
The Rev. Larry Isbell is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Columbus. He can reached at [email protected].
