Day Twenty-One
Bill Dohle
Pastor
St. Paul Lutheran Church
Peoria, Illinois
Psalm 42
Zechariah 8.1-17
Matthew 8.14-17, 28-34
Christmas is filled with more than just presents and gifts and carols and cards. It’s also filled with memories.
Think on the traditions we hold most dear. How we decorate our trees, put up our lights, and write our Christmas cards say more about our past than our present. Even the gifts we give and receive are reminders of days long ago. They may bring back memories of mom and dad putting up the tree or a Christmas with the grandparents. They may remind us how things once were, how simple we remember life was back then.
All these memories wrap themselves around our Christmas celebrations.
The church too has memories of years gone by. Every year folks at our parish remember the past. They harken back to events they use to share together. They remember the good times, often with rose colored glasses, forgetting about the hard times around them.
And they long to be back there again, celebrating as they use to.
The prophet Zechariah speaks the word of the Lord, reminding his audience of days gone by. The prophet, whose name literally means “The Lord Remembers”, recounts through God’s eyes what life was like before the exile. How the streets of Jerusalem were filled with children. How the people rejoiced over their God. How everyone was together.
And God promises that the past will return and life will be good again. In the day, God will ensure the safety of everyone. All who have been scattered will be gathered together again. The city will live as it once did, with children in its streets and the elderly smiling upon them. God has promised that he will do good to Jerusalem again. He will return to the people what was taken from them. He will restore their peace.
Only God can make such promises and fulfill them. None of the rest of us can. Though we try, we cannot return our world to the past. We cannot make everything as it was before. At home we know that grandparents have passed and times have changed. Christmas lives best in our memories. In churches we face the same. The past cannot be repeated. Pastors have risen and fallen on the promises of a return to the glory days, only to see those promises fall unfulfilled.
Only God can make things right. Only God’s memory will last.
Only God can take the future and perfect it. It is God’s presence that does this. God’s return to Zion and dwelling in Jerusalem cause the streets to fill with people. God is the one who saves his people from where he scattered them. God is the one who gives an inheritance to his people. God is the one who has determined to be good.
In this glorious future, this perfected vision of the past, God is the one who makes it happen. It is God’s work and not ours.
This Christmas, as we remember the past and pine after the days gone by, may we remember the past is in God’s hands. It is, and has always been, God’s action that causes life to spring up. He sent his son. He gave us redemption. It has been and always shall be, all God.
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God, you remember us and so we are saved. You provide for us, and so we have. We depend upon you for everything. Give us grace that we might be graceful, even as we face our uncertain future. Amen.
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