4th Sunday of Lent
Rise Up Middle School Day
Mount St. Joseph High School
March 10, 2024
Remembering and Forgetting
How many of you know someone who has a wonderful memory? It might be a classmate or a family member. These people are amazing. They can read something or hear something once and recall it on the spot days, weeks, months, maybe even years later. On the other hand, how many of you know someone who always seems to forget things? They ask you the same question. They forget important information. They can’t recall what they did yesterday or what they need to do today.
In ordinary life, I think we mostly fit somewhere in between. We remember some things and perhaps forget other things. Usually we remember those things that excite us or are important to us. If something doesn’t hold our attention, it is easier for us to forget about it.
Remembering and Forgetting God’s Mighty Deeds
When we read the story of salvation found in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, we see two different things happening again and again. First, God does something wonderful: He creates the world; he forms a special bond with Abraham; he leads the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, he delivers his people from one enemy after another. And each time the people are amazed; each time they remember God’s greatness and power; each time they are reminded of his tremendous love for them. . . . But as time goes by, something else happens, something strange: God’s people start thinking about other things. They get wrapped up in their own plans and their work. As that happens, they begin to forget about the things of God. They forget what God has done, and what God called them to do. They grow lax in their practice of the faith; they put God on the side.
When they do this, new problems pop up and they try to find ways to fix them. But rather than remembering what God has done, and turning to him and trusting in him – God’s own people try to do it themselves. Often this means rejecting God and placing all their hope in some worldly power. Time and time again they do this, and often they experience terrible defeats. But God does not abandon them. No, he steps in to help his people to remember . . . to help them remember what he has done for them and the love that he has for them. God does this by sending them the prophets, those people he calls forth to speak his Word and to remind his people who God is and who they are: God’s chosen people. This pattern repeats itself again and again: God sends someone to remind his people, his people forget, then God sends them a someone who speaks for him to remind them.
God So Loved the World
Now if someone treated us this way, we might help them once, maybe twice, and if were really kind, maybe even three times. But we’d probably hit a point where we think, “They just don’t get it!” “They just keep forgetting.” “Why should I keep going out of my way to help them remember?” ‘But God’s ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts.’ We have limits, God does not. God’s love, his mercy, his patience, his goodness, is without limit. So he doesn’t give up on his people. He doubles down. And how does he do this? “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. …God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
God stops at nothing to save us. God gives us everything so that we might remember who he is: Our Savior, our Redeemer, our Deliverer, our loving Father, the God of Mercy. God sends his Son so that we might remember who we are: beloved daughters and sons of the Father in heaven. He knows what this will cost. He knows that many will reject him. But God stops at nothing to lead us to him, to save us from forgetting his love and mercy, to save us from following the path of sin and death, and to guide us in following his way in the path of life and love.
Memory made Flesh
Jesus comes among us to show us, to reveal to us, the Face of God. He reminds us who is: the God of mercy, the God of compassion, the Good Shepherd. But he does something else, something for you and me . . . You see, the same challenge the people of the Old Testament had, can be a struggle for us. We want to follow Jesus, but often we get so busy, so focused on the things we have to do, so wrapped up in our worries or problems – that we forget about God, what God has done for us, and what God is asking us to do.
So, Jesus wanted us to have a way that we might see him, that we might remember him, that we might encounter him, here and now. Jesus wanted to save us from the terrible sadness of forgetting him and forgetting what he has done for us. So on the night before he gave his life to set us free, he took bread, bless and broke it and said, “Take this all of you and eat of it, This Is My Body.” He took wine gave it to his disciples and said, “Take this all of you and drink from it, for This Is My Blood…Do this in memory of me.”
Whenever we do this, we don’t just think back to what Jesus did; Jesus becomes present here and now. This is a memory so strong that Jesus becomes present among us, and we share, here and now, in what the Lord did to save us. We are there as he offered himself on the Cross! We are there as he rose from the dead! We are there as he ascended to the Father! Every time we come to Mass, we encounter Jesus. Every time we come to Mass, Jesus reminds us who he is, what he has done for us, and he helps us remember who we are: beloved sons and daughters, the very people his Father loved so much that he was willing to give his Only Begotten Son.