Memories

Trips down memory lane are often somewhat less than expectations.  Things change.  This afternoon I drove through Stapleton, Georgia.  It was the first place I was assigned as a preacher.  The church was still there, but it was closed.  No one worships there anymore.  The parsonage was also just down the road and while it looked much the same, the neighborhood looked so different.  Some houses I could remember were gone as were so many of the people I used to name as members of the church.  The one factory which gave life to the town had been demolished and the tree under which I saw a man die from a heart attack was gone.

 

Memories suffer under the glare of reality.  Not much stays the same, but the memories.  However, the Word of God is a Word which places great stock in memory.  The ancient Hebrews were called to remember again and again how God delivered them from the Egyptians and brought them to the Promised Land.  Along the way they erected rock markers to help them remember how God had been present in a particular place at a  particular time.  And each year as the Jewish people celebrate Passover, memory stands huge at the table.

Of course, it is no different with us.  Maybe some of the places we go now are different than they were fifty years ago, or maybe even a year ago, but what does not change is the way God has been present with us.  We, too, have built markers to help us recall.  Some of them may be as tangible as the waters of baptism and some of them may simply be things carried in the heart.  But, all of them are real in our lives and have their place for God is with us.  God has been with us.  And, God will be with us beyond what we know as this life into the life we speak of as eternity.