Several years ago, I was browsing through a curio shop and came across an interesting little item that I wish now I had bought. It was a gold-colored brick inscribed with these words: "On this site in 1872, nothing happened." I am something of a history buff. I like to know what went on before me, and why it happened, and what significance it has. I am one of those people who like to go to historical sites and read every word of the plaques and inscriptions that tell of the importance of the place. I get a thrill from seeing old ships, old letters, old homes. For some reason, it has always seemed important to me to know the people who have lived before me and to know all about their lives. In fact, I hope that if I get to heaven, it will be possible to go back in time and re-live some of the great moments of history.

History is very much on our minds this morning, for we are in the middle of our celebration of Memorial Day. Today, Memorial Day is set aside as a day to remember the men and women who have given their lives in the military service of the nation, and also a day when we honor those people dear to us who have departed this earthly life. Memorial Day was originally established in the northern states to remember the victims of the Civil War. A similar day was also observed in the south. Various dates have been observed, sometimes June 3, or April 26, or May 10. But the original date-before the advent of the practice of moving holidays to create three-day weekends-was today, May 30. For us today, the day is all about the importance of memory, of history, of the stories of people and their times that have long-since faded away, but that still call to us from out of the past with the message that they are still alive in some sense, still shaping and forming the world, still having an impact on you and me.

There are some people who don't have much use for the past, or at least, that is what they believe. They concern themselves with the present, or with the future. They contend that the past is finished and gone and, since you can't do anything to change it, doesn't mean much. And of course, in a way, they are right. We cannot change the past. We cannot live in the past either. But the past has a great deal to give to you and to me, and what it has to give, nothing else can give us.

Think for a moment about what your life would be like today if you could not or did not remember anything that has happened to you before today. Let's say you woke up this morning totally unaware and unconcerned about the past. Would your remember your name? Would you remember in what city you live? Would you remember who your friends and relatives are, what kind of work you do, what your favorite flavor of ice cream is? Would you remember to take your medicine that keeps your heartbeat regular, and would you remember that you shouldn't call your spouse "sugarplum" because that nickname drives her up the wall?

Obviously, history is important, because history is the memory of who we are and how we fit in the world. Memory has been called "the substance of personal identity." (Horace Kallen) It has been described as that which "holds together past and present, gives continuity and dignity to human life...the companion...the tutor, the poet, the library, with which you travel." (Mark Van Doren)

Remembering the past, knowing our history, is one of the crucial elements of our Christian faith. In fact, without the memory of who has gone before us and what they have said and done, we would be left with very little substance and reason for our faith in the first place. I believe that one of the more important words in the Bible, perhaps just as important as words like faith and grace and hope, is the word remember. Throughout the Old Testament, the people of God are commanded to remember. From the book of Exodus we read that "Moses said to the people, 'Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, because the Lord brought you out from there by strength of hand; no leavened bread shall be eaten.'" Elsewhere in Exodus, God commands the people through Moses to "remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy." In the Psalms we hear that "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him." From Ecclesiastes we hear, "Remember your creator in the days of your youth...." In the New Testament as well, remembering plays a vital role in the life of faith. One of the two thieves crucified with Jesus said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And on the evening before, when Jesus ate his final meal with his companions, he said, "Do this in remembrance of me."

Why is remembering so vital, so necessary to our faith? George Bernard Shaw once said, "Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that men never learn anything from history." But indeed, we do. Without religious history-religious memory-we do not know who we are, who God is, or what we are to do with our lives. Throughout the Old Testament, the Israelites are commanded to remember that God rescued them from slavery in Egypt and then gave them a land to call their own. It was the power of that memory, the knowledge of what God had done for them in the past, that kept them coming back to God for wisdom and understanding and strength. The people had their choice of gods, their choice of religions, but it was their memory of what this one particular god had done for them that told them this god was like no other god, in fact, this god was the only true God. When a new generation was born, they had to be taught about the experience of the past so that they would not nave to try to find this one true God on their own. Each successive generation would benefit from the history of its fathers and mothers. Each new child would be given a memory of the past so he or she would not have to repeat the painful process of learning from the start about the nature of life and the nature of God.

The dynamic is the same in the New Testament. The disciples were told to remember their last meal with Jesus, because when Jesus was gone, that memory would tell them what Jesus had done for them and was still doing for them. The gospels were written so that everyone could know about Jesus, and in that knowing, would come to love him and follow him just like the first followers. And so it goes, on and on, right into the present, right into now. We are here today because of the memory we have about what God has done for people like Abraham and Sarah, David and Ruth, people like Peter and Mary and Paul, people like our mothers and fathers, people like us.

This business of remembering is more than just knowing the names and dates and places of the past. Remembering is more than just hindsight. Remembering, in its most powerful form, also involves insight and foresight, just as much as it involves hindsight. The biblical record is very clear about this truth, that looking to the past is one sure way to gain insight about the truth of things that then gives us a vision and confidence for the future.

Fifteen years ago, in the spring of 1984, God taught me about this relationship between hindsight, insight, and foresight. In February of that year, my world and my life fell apart. With no warning and with no mercy, an invisible virus took the life of my wife, my best friend, the mother of my two young children. In the space of a few moments, all of my plans, my dreams, my foundations for living, were gone, or so it seemed. I was no longer part of "we," I was now just "me." The control, the certainty, the predictability of life was all gone, and, in a sense, lost forever. The future was a black hole of questions and pain and worries. I wondered if anything in my life would ever be bright and happy again.

When life turns on you like that, I suppose you have several choices. You can end your life. You can numb yourself with drugs or work. You can let your life drift along and let other people determine its direction and purpose. Or you can try to put your life back together. And for me, putting life back together involved a journey that took me back to the past before I could survive in the present or even think about any kind of future.

In the weeks and months following my wife's death, I did a lot of remembering. I went home, to the places and people and experiences that had made me who I was. I spent hours with old photo albums. I spent more hours visiting friends and relatives I hadn't seen in years. I prayed in churches where I had worshiped before, and sat in classrooms where I had studied before. Most of all, I reflected and pondered and remembered about all the events of my life that I could recall. And slowly, very slowly, I began to remember who I was, what life had been before that moment when it had so drastically changed. I re-lived my history, if you will, and the re-living of my life brought me back to life, with a new sense of understanding about who I was and what the world was about.

In a way, that understanding, that deep insight into myself, was very much like the understanding I had had before Mary Jane's death. But in another way, it was very different, different because now I understood myself and my life through the experience of death. That experience changed me, but in order to understand it, to assimilate it, I had to reconcile it with everything that had gone before it, with my history. And I can tell you now that all of that time spent remembering gave me a knowledge of God that made it possible for me to keep on living. The hindsight into the past gave me new insight into the present reality that in turn provided me with a hopeful foresight into the future.

In my past, I had found many things. I discovered again what was truly important to me. I found who I really loved, what I was good at doing, where I had made mistakes that I didn't have to make again. I found that every challenge and test in my life I had somehow survived. I found that other people-my own father, for one-had live through the test I was now facing, and in their wisdom I discovered insight that would help me pick up and go on. And beneath it all, I discovered the truth that God had been in my life all along.

When the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, wondering if they would ever have a home, Moses challenged them to remember that God had rescued them from Egypt, and so they kept going. When the armies of Israel were fighting the peoples of Canaan, wondering if they would ever have a land to call their own, God called them to remember that he had fed them in the wilderness, and they kept fighting. When Israel finally had become a strong and mighty nation, the prophets reminded the people that their true strength was from God, and not from their treasury or their military, and so they remained faithful. When the exiles of Israel languished in a foreign land, the leaders of the people told them to remember God's promise that he would always be with them, and that one day they would return to the Promised Land, and they kept hoping. When the Jews found their land occupied by a foreign power, they remembered that God had promised them a Messiah, a king, and they kept looking for him. When the Messiah lay dead in a tomb, a few of his friends remembered that he said he would live again, and when he appeared to them in resurrected glory, they remembered everything he had told them, and finally, they understood, and believed, and rejoiced. Finally, they saw that in all of their history, God had been with them, and would always be.

Frederick Beuchner, the Presbyterian minister and writer, once wrote about remembering. He said, "I have not given up. And each of you, with all the memories you have and the tales you could tell, you also have not given up. You also are survivors and are here. And what does that tell us, our surviving? It tells us that weak as we are, a strength beyond our strength has pulled us through at least this far, at least to this day. Foolish as we are, a wisdom beyond our wisdom has flickered up just often enough to light us if not to the right path through the forest, at least to a path that leads forward, that is bearable. Faint of heart as we are, a love beyond our power to love has kept our hearts alive. So in the room called Remember it is possible to find peace-the peace that comes from looking back and remembering to remember that though most of the time we failed to see it, we were never really alone."

Friends, there is the task for you and me, today, and every day. We need to remember to remember. For hindsight reveals insight that informs foresight. Let us look to the past to find wisdom for the present that will then allow us to approach our futures with faith, with hope, with confidence that we are never really alone.

Amen.

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