Paradise of Remembrance

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We have forgotten God and robbed him of his glory, but God does not leave us forsaken. He promises to remember us and restore us through his faithfulness.

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Trinitarian sourced, eschatologically oriented Big Idea

Even though we have forgotten our offenses against God, Jesus promises to remember us and to restore us to life through the gift of his Spirit.

Sermonic Proposition

We have forgotten God's faithfulness and we have forgotten our faithlessness, but Jesus takes our forgetfulness and promises to remember us faithfully.

Preamble

Thematic Notes

Subject

God’s Faithfulness

Theme

Memory

Fallen Condition Focus

FCF: Pervasive and unknown sin
FCF2: Feeling as though God has forgotten us.

Theological Notes

Patrological

God the Father has chosen his people and designated them for the habitation of glory, but his people have abandoned his ways. Nonetheless, he writes a book for faithfulness to distinguish his servants, and he promises to forgive those who look to him as their Father. He receives the mediation of the Son as the lamb who intercedes for the sinfulness of his people.

Christological

The Son is the faithful Israel who honors the Father and kept his ways. He has warned them about the impending suffering and has taken up his lot with sinners. In their midst he offers intercession as the priestly king and leads the people into the promised land of God’s presence.

Pneumatological

The Spirit brings knowledge of our sin to us and moves us to remember our offences against God. He enlivens us to faithfulness and service. As the Spirit proceeded with the Son to the place of the Skull, he carried the intercession to the Father and brought the Father’s favor to the Son.

Contextual Notes

Historical

Malachi prophesied approximately 500-400 BC. In his prophecy, then, Judah had returned from Babylon. Daniel, Esther, and the other exilic figures have already lived. Ezra and Nehemiah have returned and begun the reconstruction. Then his prophecy comes, proclaiming the Purifier of the Temple... one who brings with him fire to refine and burn. He prophecies that God will return to his people, and that he will prepare them as his possession. They will not be forgotten. As a precursor to the Hasmonean and Pharisee sects, the historical context and its prophetic word show how taking holiness into our hands can go awry. We are not responsible for procuring God's blessing. We are responsible merely for serving him (and serving him through the provision for all people, i.e. tithes for the priests and poverty-stricken). He is the one who remembers.

Literary

Malachi shows the sin of the priests in the way they have used their mouths and cult practices. They have not served God, they have defiled the Table of the Lord and his Covenant. They were supposed to have honored it. Nonetheless, Malachi 3 promises that a Faithful One will come and purify the Temple and its sacrifices. He will keep (or inspire) the book of the Lord’s Remembrance.
Luke shows the passion of Jesus as the Second Adam who ‘belongs’ to all nations of the earth; he cares for the least of these and brings with him the ransom of the captive and the healing of the sick. Earth is God’s kingdom, and the cross becomes his throne: This IS the King of the Jews. He is crucified in the midst of all people and he provides the priestly means of renewed life by the Spirit. God has remembered his faithful servant(s).

Genre

Does the presence of Apocalyptic Prophecy in Jesus words to the Jerusalem women indicate the Lukan passion narrative should be understood as Israel’s rejection of God’s Messiah in the Day of the Lord?

Textual Outline: Malachi 3:13-18

The Disposition of the Faithless
The accusation of Jehovah
You have arrogant words
What words?
The sayings of the Faithless
It is vain
What profit
Why mourning
The Turn toward the Wicked
The arrogant are blessed
The wicked escape
The Recompense of the Faithful
The Dialogue of the Faithful
Those who feared spoke
Jehovah heard
The Book of Remembrance written
The Inheritance of the Faithful
They will be mine
They will be my possession
They will be my child
Distinguish between the righteous and the wicked

Textual Outline: Luke 23:27-43

Weep for Yourselves
The women followed him
Do not cry for me, but cry for yourselves
The Time is coming...
The Justice of God's Forgiveness
The Place of the Forsaken Azazel Goat
Two other evildoers were crucified with him
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them..."
They cast lots
The Disposition of the Wicked
The people stood watching
The rulers taunted
The soldiers mocked
The evildoer blasphemed
The Recompense of the Faithful
The other one said, "Do you not fear God?"
We are punished justly, but he unjustly
"Jesus, remember me."
"Today you will be with me in paradise."

Sermonic Outline

The Problem of Memory
Introduction
The intent of a delightful land (Genesis 1-2)
The accusations against God (Malachi 3)
The Book of Remembrance (Malachi 3, Revelation 13:8)
The Crucifixion
Weep over what will happen in the dry wood
Two other kinds of evil doers with him
At the skull-place they crucified him
Father, Forgive them
They do not know what they do
Those standing there watched while
Rulers sneered for salvation
Soldiers gave wine for salvation
Wicked blaspheme for salvation
But the Other knew Jesus' righteousness
He asked for remembrance
It was granted him as Paradise
​

PARADISE OF REMEMBRANCE

Sermonic Proposition

We have forgotten God's faithfulness and we have forgotten our faithlessness, but Jesus takes our forgetfulness and promises to remember us faithfully.

Bottom Line

Though we forget, we are not forgotten.

The Problem of Memory

Introduction

If you’ve ever known someone with dementia or Alzheimer's, you know the pain of forgetfulness. Names and memories begin to slip away and personality traits that were hidden beneath the surface become more prominent. The strange behaviors of the ones we love become a source of pain, and we begin to wonder if they’re even the same person. Much of our relationships depend upon shared memory, things that we can recall. Is your parent really your parent if they can’t remember you as their child? Memory Loss affects us as a result of the fall, but it was not intended to be our common experience.

The intent of a delightful land (Genesis 1-2)

When God created us, he created us as his image-bearers: those who would represent him to the world. One might even say that we were supposed to remember him for the benefit of all. We were intended for the delightful land of God’s presence… where memory was not something distant, but something actual… the same way that spouses ‘remember’ their wedding vows by daily practicing acts of love. We were intended to inhabit the garden paradise and to expand God’s creative love to the end of all creation.

The accusations against God (Malachi 3)

And yet despite the invitation to live in constant memory of God’s beauty and love, our first parents chose to forget God’s words. “Did God really say?” the serpent asked. And though we knew what God had really said, we chose to forget the promise and to believe a lie. We chose to inhabit the world of the serpent instead of the world of God. We chose to disown and forget God’s goodness instead of relishing in it.
The Old Testament lesson for today shows us how far we have gone to forget God’s goodness. “How have we wearied God?” we ask like a child looking for excuses. “By saying that we have worshiped him in vain.” How often we look to things we have done and believe that God has been unjust in our portion. “Look at everything I have done,” we want to say, “and God has not repayed me as is my due!” And we forget not only God’s goodness throughout our life, but we forget our own sinfulness.
We forget God’s faithfulness and we forget our own faithlessness.

The Book of Remembrance (Revelation 13:8)

But God has not forgotten us. Like Adam and Eve we forget that he has given us every tree of the garden, and we forget that we have left him for the lie of the snake. Like the priests in Malachi’s prophecy, we forget that God has promised to dwell with his people through their faithfulness, and we forget that we have illegitimately demanded God respond to our timeline and practices. Like our beloved companions that suffer from memory loss, we have forgotten the things that have mattered most, and we have become like different people.
But God has not forgotten us. Though we forget, we are not forgotten.
God promised his people through the prophet Malachi that he would prepare a book of his people. He would write down their name and gather them as his inheritance. He would inscribe our name like a King writes down the deeds of victories won and children’s inheritances. In that day, the Day of the Lord, when fire purifies the earth, he will save his precious treasure; they will not be forgotten. But how can this be? How can God remember us despite our failing? How can God inscribe our name when it is tainted by blood and mire?
Though our names are tainted with forgetfulness: forgetting his faithfulness and forgetting our faithlessness, he made a promise. And God does not forget his promises.
God took to himself human flesh and lived among us. He did not forget the word of God, but lived the word of God… in fact, he is the Living Word.
And after living the in perfect memory of the Father, he took our forgetful, human flesh and he marched it to the forsaken tree that we who were faithless might not be forgotten.

The Crucifixion

The Gospel lesson this morning begins after Jesus has already been tried and sentenced. He has already been given the wooden beam, and foreigners have already marched alongside him. But there are others there too. There are women there, following him and weeping.

Weep over what will happen in the dry wood.

The words of Jesus are shocking and offensive. As he turns to the women following and weeping, he tells them, “Do not weep for me. Instead weep for yourselves and your children.” The day is coming he tells them, when the tree will be dry, perhaps referring to the day of judgment, when people will beg the mountains and hills to crush and cover them, to hide them from the judgment coming upon the earth. “Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves.” In so doing, Jesus reminds us that he goes willingly because he follows the word of the Father in the power of the Spirit.

Two other kinds of evil doers with him.

But going along with him were two others. Others of a different kind. These were evil doers, and though Jesus was sentenced, they could hardly be considered similar. The ones who went alongside him were not righteous or faithful. They were unrighteous and faithless. These are the ones who rebel against God and man and are receiving their just punishment.

At the Skull-place they crucified him.

And when they reach the skull place they crucify him. It is remarkable, is it not, that Luke’s depiction is essentially bloodless. This is a crucifixion, there is no doubt, but the text only uses one matter-of-fact way of stating it: “There they crucified him.” There is no spear in the side, there is no crown of thorns, there is no whip, and there is no blood. The pure and spotless lamb of God is maligned and mocked, but the cross is his throne. Outside of the city, in the wilderness country, the blameless lamb was laden down with curses (Lev. 16:21). But to the cross, he went willingly.
Though all others seemed to forget his righteousness, he did not forget why he had come to the earth.

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.

He came as a perfect priest to intercede for the people and bring purification. He came as the spotless lamb to receive the confession and transgression of the people and to take it far into the wilderness. As the Scapegoat, Jesus came to bear away the sin… even the the sin that the people do not know what they do.
Did you know that God made provision for sins of ignorance? That there are things we have forgotten we had done, but that he provided a way for Israel to trust God to remove their sin from them? And so when Jesus climbs upon the cross, with evildoers on his left and his right, he stretches out his hands and says, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”
They have forgotten! They do not even know the things they have done. They do not even know the things they have not done. They do not even know the things God has done that they have failed to notice. For all the forgotten sins, Jesus prays, “Forgive them.” It is vain to serve God, we think, because he has forgotten us and let the wicked get away; but
God remembers us even when we forget.

Those standing there watched while...

While Jesus was the purifying priest, praying for all around him, they encampment watched. As the perfect lamb, he received their transgressions.
Rulers sneered for salvation
The rulers cast lots and called him the chosen one at the same time that they scoffed: Let him save himself!
Oh, but Jesus is the chosen one, the anointed priest who would serve the people.
Soldiers gave wine for salvation
The soldiers brought wine and called him the King of the Jews at the same time that they mocked him: save yourself!
Oh, but Jesus is the King of the Jews, exalted upon the cross, his throne, and there is even the inscription written above him, telling the whole world that he is the king.
Evildoer blasphemed for salvation
The evildoer called upon Christ for salvation at the same time as he blasphemed him: save yourself and us!
Oh, but Jesus is saving them, though he did not need salvation. He is the savior of all who look to him.

But the other knew Jesus’ righteousness and asked for remembrance.

And one of the evildoers honored him as the Covenant Keeper when he asked, “Remember me.” The other one blasphemed Jesus, but not both. One of them saw Jesus and asked why he was doing nothing to save them. But the other rebuked him and remembered the just judgment of God. He remembered the faithfulness of the Covenant-keeper. He remembered the faithlessness of his own transgressions. And instead of asking Jesus to prove himself, he trusted him to be everything. “Remember me,” he asked. And the goat that would bear the sin into the place of forgetfulness, promised that he would remember him indeed.

It was granted him as Paradise.

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Jesus promised to remember him, but not a distant, historical fact. As a spouse can remember their wedding day, Jesus remembers us always. Paradise, a return to the garden, is something that is future in scope, but it is not only future… just as it is not only past. It is something that takes place every day and every week. Though we forget, we are not forgotten. Jesus carried our sin to the wilderness to be forever forgotten, but he promises to remember us always. And he does so through his Holy Spirit. His Spirit dwells with us and brings to us the favor of the Father. The Holy Spirit brings us into the living memory of God’s faithfulness. He causes us to remember God’s goodness, and he teaches us what is in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Forgetting is painful. But it is most painful when we forget the things we ought to remember and remember the things we ought to forget.

Personal Application

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