By Pastor Don Schatz

Memory of the Present Future

You can listen to today’s Devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link

“I thank my God every time I remember you.”
Philippians 1:3. New International Version

Do you remember the Barbara Streisand song, ‘Memory’?  Especially the second verse:

“Memory, all alone in the moonlight, I can dream of the old days
Life was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again”

I place flowers on my wife’s grave the 15th of each month.  That was the day of the month on which she died almost 2 years ago.  Of course, I remember her birthday, Mother’s Day, our Anniversary!  Perhaps you have someone you remember in this way.

I hope that ‘remembering’ for you does not envision only things of the past.  The memory doesn’t have to live again, because it never stopped living.  Our memory of loved ones is a memory of the present future.  They live in our memory today.  They live in our ‘memory of the future’ in the certain hope that is ours in the resurrection of the dead.

Admittedly, St. Paul was living in the present when he greeted the Philippian Christians with these words.  Or was he?  What was true for Paul in the past, and in the present as he wrote, would be true in the future as well.  Every time he remembered, or would remember, the Philippians, he would give thanks.

And I know what that is like.  Perhaps you do as well.  I thank God for the gift my wife was to me.  For the gift of her love, her wedding vows, her patient endurance over the years of a much-less-than-perfect husband, for the gift of our children, for her strong faith, for the blessing she was to countless children and families through her teaching career.  And so much more.  That will never change.  I remember the future when I remember her.  Because Christ remembers us always, and surrounds past, present and future with his memory of us.  And our memories are joined with his.  One Lord.  One hope.  One faith.  One memory.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado