May 24, 1998

As a gift for our 25^th wedding anniversary a few years ago, some friends of ours gave us the use of a beautiful beach home on Cape Cod. Sandy and I packed up our things, and looking forward to a quiet, romantic weekend, headed off for the place. The house turned out to be spectacular, overlooking Cape Cod Bay, containing about 5,000 square feet of luxurious living space, and having just about every electronic audio-video toy imaginable. Well, Sandy and I took one look at the place and knew what we had to do: So we called the kids and invited them come join us! And then we phoned our dear longtime friends Tom and Adele Corrigan and invited them, too! When they heard our kids were coming, they asked if they could bring their son, Todd - Peter's first best friend from years ago. We said, "Why not?!" You see, quiet romance has its place in life, but sometimes, you just have to throw a party. So we did.

And it was a great time we had together. And one of the best moments of all - at least for me - was waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of boys laughing. Peter and Todd, tucked away two floors below us, were reminiscing about their boyhood days in North Attleboro. They hadn't seen each other in a long time. And with story after story shared, there was obviously great joy that bubbled up and overflowed from them, touching their hearts, I think, with a kind of goodness and richness that only memories can bring.

The gift of memory, I believe, is one of God's greatest gifts to human beings. Its power in our lives is so great, in fact, that you and I instinctively record the stories of our lives in this cerebral computer of ours, and then, from time to time, retrieve the files in order to consider the stories again. And the effect of remembering is powerful!

Today, on Memorial Day weekend, we remember our nation's war dead. I recall as a child going with my father to Memorial Day parades and later to the somber services at cemeteries where small flags waved in the breeze, and a firing squad fired three shots, and a solitary bugler played Taps in the distance. And what I remember most is that, in that act of memory, was something far deeper than just an old story. There seemed to be a kind of sacred shadow that fell across the image of fallen soldiers and brokenhearted families. And somehow, in a most powerful way, the lesson of how high the cost of freedom is was learned once again. In remembering things like we do on Memorial Day, there seems to be an enlargement of our lives, connecting us to other people and to higher causes.

There is power in the gift of memory.

You can often see it at work when we experience the tragedy of losing loved ones. Over the years, I've been with many families trying to come to grips with the death of a spouse, a parent, a child, a grandparent. What almost invariably happens is that, at some point, someone will come up with a story.

Or some other interesting anecdote. And that is followed by another, and another, and another. And laughter flows. And tears stream down cheeks.

And although the underlying reality cannot be changed, and the grieving is still deep and will go on forever, something about the memories that are shared has a kind of comforting, healing dimension. One young man I know, brokenhearted over the death of his grandfather, said to those of us gathered once around a kitchen table telling stories, "Remembering Grandpa like this makes me feel really warm inside."

There is power in the gift of memory. It is one of God's most wonderful gifts!

During this month of May, I'm preaching a series of sermons on practical, down-to-earth ways you and I can touch the lives of others with the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So far, we've explored the art of Christian friendship, then we took up the art of Christian nurture, and last week, we took a stab at the art of Christian forgiveness. This morning, I want to invite you to take up a fourth approach to helping others experience the new life of Christ. We might call it the art of Christian memory.

Our text is found in the opening verses of the Book of Acts. Now, many of you probably know that Acts was written by Luke who was a Greek physician - a friend of Paul's. The Book of Acts was originally a companion scroll to the Gospel of Luke. Because papyrus scrolls were usually a certain length, it is believed that Luke came to the end of one scroll and, like any good preacher, wasn't even close to being finished. So he brought that first scroll - containing what we know as the Gospel of Luke - to an end. And then Luke started a second scroll, which became knows as The Acts of The Apostles, and continued the story. Did you notice how our Scripture lesson began today?

And Luke goes on to say that now he is going to tell the story of what happened after Jesus was taken up to heaven. If you've read the book of Acts, you know already that what Luke is leading up to is the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came. And the disciples were filled with power, just as Jesus had promised. And the Church of Jesus Christ was born. We'll take a look at that next week on Pentecost Sunday. But today, we want to explore these opening verses of Acts in which Luke prepares his readers for the coming of the Spirit.

Did you catch how he prepares them? Why, he calls them to remember.

And there are three memories that Luke asks his readers to recall. First, remember Jesus - his life and his teachings. Second, remember the resurrection and its hope for the future. Third, remember the promise of the Spirit's power for your life.

I once attended a workshop where we were asked to look around a very beautiful church sanctuary and decide what things present there were truly essential for there to be a church there. The leader pointed to various things throughout the worship space and asked us to give a thumbs up if the item was indispensable or thumbs down if it could be discarded without affecting the sanctity of the place. Item by item, we mentally removed the things that were not absolutely essential for there to be a church present. Some were easy to decide upon, like flowers and hymnals and carpeting and air conditioning. Others were more difficult, like the cross on the altar and the Bible in the pulpit. And finally, after every item had been considered, we realized that there was nothing left. Not one physical object in that sanctuary remained that was absolutely essential for there to be a church in that place.

And then the workshop leader said something like this: Isn't it amazing that, when you get right down to it, what makes a church a church is a company of people gathered around the person of Jesus, the hope of the resurrection, and the power of the Holy Spirit. All the other things are nice, and most are very helpful in the nurturing of faith. But it is Jesus, the resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit that are the essentials.

I like that statement. One of the reasons I like it is because I've discovered over the years that two things often stand in the way of people finding a life-giving, life-changing relationship with God. One is a whole history of bad experiences with churches and Christians who major in the minors and spend most of their time and energy fighting and wrestling over things that, in the larger sweep of the kingdom of God mean little or nothing. Do you know what I'm saying? The second is that all of this confusion has left many people with a very inaccurate understanding of the essentials of our faith - Jesus, the resurrection, and the Holy Spirit.

A Sunday School teacher had given her students some of those neat WWJD bracelets. That stands for what would Jesus do? She was giving her students some real-life situations to consider in light of that question.

"Let's say someone comes up to you and slaps you on the cheek?" she asked one little boy, obviously alluding to Jesus' famous teaching about turning the other cheek. "What would Jesus do?" she asked.

The kid thought about it for a moment and then responded with certainty, "Jesus would say 'My Father's gonna kick your butt, boy!"

Now, I love the WWJD concept and I hope we'll all use it as a means of thinking through our actions as Christians. But honestly, dear friends, unless we know who Jesus is, and what Jesus is like, and what Jesus taught, WWJD will result in some pretty contorted expressions of the Christian Faith.

So Luke calls us to remember.

Remember Jesus. Remember the resurrection. Remember the Spirit.

These are three of the greatest memories you can give to the people you meet!

In a short while, we'll be starting a small-group experience here in our church that's centered around Philip Yancey's wonderful book, The Jesus I Never Knew. I hope you'll all take part, for this is a study that challenges our current perceptions of Jesus and draws us toward a more Biblical memory of the Lord and His life. You see, most of us really don't know Jesus very well!

But in the art of Christian memory, we can learn about and experience a Jesus who is the embodiment of Good News to people like us, and to people like those we meet.

I once knew a woman who was going through the tragedy of divorce. It was one of those situations where there was probably plenty of blame to go around, but she was particularly anguished about her own role in the breakup. I tried to remind her that Jesus cared about her, and that she could turn to him for help. But she was so guilt-ridden about her own failures that she was convinced Jesus would never have anything to do with her. Well, I thought about that for a while. Then I shared with her that I thought she was being hard on Jesus, and unfair to him. Have you ever said that to someone who's convinced they're on the far side of God's love? I think you're being unfair to Jesus. Gets their attention every time!

And people are unfair to Jesus. Even as we speak, there are those who will look at the other day's tragic eruption of violence in the school in Springfield, Oregon, and they will try to deal with it by blaming it on God. How could a loving God ever allow something like this to happen?

Now, no person in their right mind would ever say to one of the parents of the two students who were killed or the dozens who were wounded, "How could you allow this to happen to your children?" One of the great burdens of life is that we who are parents send our children off everyday into a world that is uncertain, that is difficult to negotiate, and that is fraught with danger. It's hard to be a parent in a fallen world like ours. We would never think to say to a parent who's experienced a tragedy like the one this week that, if they were truly loving they would not have allowed it to happen!

But we say it about God.

Why?

Well, perhaps it is because we fail to see God as God really is. There's something within us that insists that God is a Wizard of Oz type wizard who hides behind a curtain, pulling levers and blowing smoke and manipulating life. Easy to blame such a God for all that is wrong with the world! And yet, that's not what God is like. Jesus shows us a different picture of God - as a loving parent - just like you and me. A loving parent who broods over his children, laughs with them in their joy, weeps with them in their sorrow, and would even give up his life for their sake.

People are often unfairly hard on God. This woman's ears sort of perked up when I said that, and she asked me what I meant by the comment.

So we sat there and talked Bible stories. We talked about Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. We talked about Jesus and Zaccheus, the crooked tax collector. We talked about Jesus and the woman by the well. We talked about Jesus and Peter's denial of him on the last night of his life. We talked about lots of Bible stories involving Jesus and messed up people. Finally I asked her if she saw any similarities between all the stories. She found several, but the one that I think became life-changing for her was a very astute observation. All at once, she blurted out, "I think one of the things I see that I never saw before is that Jesus didn't BLAME people for making mistakes. He only HELPED them DEAL with their mistakes, and to do better next time."

And that memory of Jesus allowed this woman to open her life to the Lord. And with a new-found faith in God, she was able to navigate the stormy seas through the divorce and finally come to new beginnings over on the other side.

You see, in the art of Christian memory, you and I work to remind others of who Jesus really is - our truest and most loyal Friend, the Savior on whom we can depend. We also endeavor to remind people of the hope that new life can be born out of their current hurt and failure. No one is lost to God, and no situation is beyond God's ability to bring about new life. And everybody you know needs to be reminded of that! And, thirdly, we seek to remind people about the promise that there is power available to them - a strength beyond themselves - that can help them take up life as it is, and seize the day in Jesus' name.

The art of Christian memory is a powerful gift to bring to another person! But in order to share it, we ourselves need to do what Luke calls Christian people to do. Remember.

Remember Jesus. Discover who He is, and what He's like.

Remember the resurrection. Learn that there is hope for every person in every circumstance.

And remember the Spirit. Call upon God to help us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

On the very last night of Jesus' life, he gathered with those he loved around a simple table. There, Jesus shared with them - and us - two words that can change a person's life.

Jesus said, "Remember me!"

Dear friends, go this week, and help people remember.