Grace Lutheran Church

+ In Nomine Jesu +
The Rev. Evan Gaertner
Third Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 3)
Isaiah 49:8-16
“Engraved”

Tomorrow on Memorial Day flags will decorate the graves of those men and women that in their life worked to preserve the freedoms that we enjoy in the United States. Those men and women answered the call to duty and did not forget the liberty that they worked to preserve.

Medals, flags, and memorial stones in parks all serve to remind us of the sacrifice that they made.

For even the most forgetful person the human brain has an amazing potential for memory. In the news this past week was Jill Price, a woman who has a superior autobiographical memory of her entire life. From any random day she can tell you what she wore, the weather that day, what she watched on TV, and family events. If you have ever forgotten where you put your keys you may be envious of this woman’s memory. But she said that this vivid autobiographical memory places an incredible emotional toll on herself because she will relive tragic events vividly, she does not just get over it.

The prophet Isaiah quotes the people of Jerusalem saying, “The LORD has forsaken me; my LORD has forgotten me.”

The feeling of being forgotten is a deep tragic feeling. A child in a store that suddenly looks up and finds that she has been following a different skirt than what her mother was wearing will scream, turn around quickly, panic. We do not want to be forgotten.

The people that Isaiah was talking about felt forgotten. They were barren, unable to live out their future. God made their lives possible but now they were captive to powerful Babylon and in the darkness of despair. As a nation they felt deeply despised. They hungered and thirsted for hope but found no reason to have any hope in all directions that they looked, including up to God. They figured they were becoming a forgotten people.

They were put into this exile because they had forgotten God. The people of Jerusalem had allowed the worship of false gods in the Temple of the Lord. They did not trust their heritage and deliverance into the hands of God. They became a people called by God but they did not answer the call and instead went their own way.

After having tried living life apart from God and finding themselves messed up, they now complain that God has forgotten them. What should God do with a people that have forgotten him and tried to walk their own path instead of the path that God has laid for them?

St. Paul said, “But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil.” (Romans 2:8-9a)

Be honest with yourself and know what you deserve from God if he honestly remembered you. In our confession of sins today we shared “Let us first consider our unworthiness and confess before God and one another that we have sinned in thought, word, and deed, and that we cannot free ourselves from our sinful condition.”

We don’t want God to remember who we are, we want God to remember who he is. When we ask God to remember who is, we are asking him to be the powerful, gracious one that can call to the prisoner, “Be free.” We want him to bring to those in darkness the light that scatters the darkness.

Psalm 137 said, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mount, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!”

We ask God to remember us, to hear our prayer, because what would our lives be like without our gracious and merciful God at work in our lives. Isaiah gives to us these words of promise, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will never forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” A nursing mother will find her whole body react when hearing a baby crying, even when that baby is not her own. Indeed God reacts when he hears our cry for mercy.

The book of Judges regular goes through the cycle of God hearing the cry for mercy, delivering the people from their captivity by sending a redeeming judge to lead them to freedom, a new generation grows up and forget the God of their deliverance and take their lives for granted, they are handed into the hands of their enemies because of their disobedience, they cry to God for mercy and God raises up a judge to deliver them from their captivity.

When God remembers us not because of our sinfulness, but because of his mercy he delivers us out of the captivity of our sin and brings us into the freedom of his love. While generations may rise up and forget who God is, God promises to never forget us.

How do I know that God has not forgotten you? Isaiah promised the Word of the Lord is true that, “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”

You may tie a string around your finger, write a grocery list on a piece of scrap paper, or send yourself an email to help you remember something you are supposed to do. How important are you to God? He engraves you upon the palm of his hand.

Jesus was lashed to the timber of wood. A Roman Soldier picked up a nail and a hammer. He pierced that hand of our Lord with that iron tool. Today I want you to mark the palm of your hand with a cross. It will not be permanent, but it will be a reminder to you that the only way we desire God to remember us is through the love of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Jesus died because of my sins. He remembered me and yet did not hold my sins against my but instead gave his life up so that I might no longer fear the grave. He not only died for me and you, but he now lives and reigns at the right hand of the Father Almighty. Whenever you pray to God you are asking him to hear your prayer through the mercy of Jesus Christ.

I want God to remember me, not according to my trespasses but according to the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Soli Deo Gloria