These Words Are Trustworthy and True

Scripture Lessons: 1 John 3: 1-3 and Revelation 21: 1-6 Sermon Title: These Words Are Trustworthy and True Preached on November 7, 2021 Sometimes I get bogged down in thinking about how things used to be. And I don’t just mean the big things. I miss small things, like whenever I think about lunch on the Square, I think about how my two favorite restaurants: Jack’s New York Deli, which had the best French fries I’ve ever tasted, and the Butcher the Baker, whose meat and two sides gave even Mary Mac’s a run for her money, are gone, gone, gone. Then, every Monday morning I wake up and head down the driveway to get the Marietta Daily Journal. For some reason it just won’t click: the local paper is five days a week and not seven, now. And some of my favorite columnists aren’t in it anymore. It’s sad, is what it is. For when I take inventory of the present and notice what isn’t there, I often find myself looking longingly towards the past. The comfort that comes from remembering what’s gone is called nostalgia, and nostalgia can be good, so we might say that we’re lucky to be living in the 21st Century, because technology has enhanced our ability to remember the past beyond what our foremothers and forefathers could have imagined. Technology can’t bring back the French fries from Jack’s New York Deli, but yesterday we had a funeral for my grandfather. He died more than a year ago. My mother and her sister wanted to wait to gather the family, not wanting his funeral to turn into a super-spreader event. When we gathered yesterday, we looked at old pictures of him. The funeral home took all these pictures, set them to music, and made a slide show. Because of that I could see his smile again. His big old yellow tinted glasses. His shiny bald head. It’s so nice to have pictures, and we should take time to be thankful for them, because while human beings have been mourning the dead for generations upon generations, we are among the first in human history who can look at a picture and remember so vividly what the people we are missing looked like. I have an old picture of my grandfather when he was in his 20’s. People used to say that I looked like him, and I never saw it until I saw that picture. My grandmother kept all the family pictures in a big drawer in the kitchen. She was a labor and delivery nurse who never took the time to put any pictures in albums. She just threw them all, jumbled into this drawer. Maybe it would have been nice if she would have organized them a little better, even still, my grandfather didn’t know what his grandfather looked like. And today, our girls can just open their phone and magically, the pictures of so many of the people who love them are there for them to look at. It’s amazing. Even better though are old home movies or voicemails. There’s a beautiful book called, Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close, about a boy who lost his father in the terrorist attacks on September 11th. His father was in one of the towers. He knew something was happening. He was scared, and he called home while his son was at school and his wife was at work, and he left a series of voicemails: The first one: Something happened, I’m OK. They’re telling us to stay where we are. I wanted to let you know that I’m OK and not to worry. Then the Second: Something is happening. I don’t know what it is. But something is happening. Again and again, his son would listen to these voicemails to hear his father’s voice. Again and again, his son would listen and remember the person he missed. But what’s so hard about the story is that his father called home a fifth time and his son was there to hear it ring, having been sent home from school. However, having heard the fear in his father’s voice from the first four voicemails, and seeing the news on TV, that fifth time the phone rings he’s too afraid to answer. It’s the fifth voicemail that he listens to most often, and this is the trap of nostalgia, for nostalgia is a look backward without a way forward. For this boy it’s memory and shame. Comfort and pain. It’s remembering and regretting. It brought his father back, in a sense. This man who was always there when he needed him. It brought him back, but it also reminded the boy how he felt like when his father needed him, and he couldn’t even pick up the phone. Today, on this All-Saint’s Sunday, we remember. I’ll read their names at the end of the service. We’ll remember who they were. The history committee has surely preserved so many pictures of their faces. We know them. They’re pictured in the church directory, and when their names are read the bell will toll. It’s a beautiful way to remember and honor the dead, however, while we also remember those who have died in the last year today, this service isn’t just about looking backward to see who was once here with us. This passage that we’ve read from the book of Revelation is a look into the future. It’s not nostalgia, but hope. It’s not where we’ve been but where we are going. What will come next. When we will see them again. And such a look into the future is a unique comfort that our religion offers, for everyone can remember, and technology enables us to be so good at looking backwards, but looking backwards, while comforting, can also leave you empty. There’s a country song called “Time Marches On.” It came out about 25 years ago, and this song tells the story of a nice little family, in the living room the little sister is in her crib, little brother is running around like a native American brave with feathers in his hair, mama is learning how to sow, daddy is relaxing listening to the radio as Hank Williams sings Kaw Liga and Dear John. But Time Marches On you see, so that soon little sister is worried about her appearance and washing her face with clear complexion soap, little brother is dressing like a hippy, dad is nowhere around, mama’s depressed, and if that weren’t bad enough time keeps marching on until daddy’s dead, mamas in the nursing home, and brother and sister are medicated just trying to hold it together. Now there’s no shortage of depressing country songs but this one takes the cake, and I’ve listened to this one so many times I know every word. However, you listen to a song like that, and it leaves you thinking that there’s more for us in the past than there is hope for the future. And there’s others. Harry Chapin who wrote “the cats in the cradle with the silver spoon,” a song that tells the story of a boy who grows up to be just like his daddy, an absentee father who only works and never has time to be a father. There’s even Bruce Springsteen, who is the coolest man to ever live in my opinion, but he also wrote: “Glory Days,” convincing generations of rock and roll fans that those High School years are the best years of your life so enjoy them, because it’s all downhill from there. Some would say that he’s right. That the most comfort comes from looking towards the past, but the hymns of our faith tell a different story. Just a moment ago we sang: My life flows on in endless song, Above earth’s lamentation. I hear the clear, though far off hymn That hails a new creation. No storm can shake my inmost calm While to that rock I’m clinging. Since Christ is lord of heaven and earth, How can I keep from singing? That’s the Christian conviction. That we’re moving towards something better, not away from it. That we have hope for the future, not just nostalgia for the past. In this way, the Christian faith, is like driving a car. We have a little rearview mirror, and can look back to what’s behind us, but our foremost attention must be on what’s ahead: the hopeful future. And so while technology offers us a great big rearview mirror to relish in the past, Revelation says, “Keep your eyes on the road and look through the windshield.” See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them. They will be his peoples, And God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, For the first things have passed away. You might say, but these are only words. What is this based on? Can it really be so good? One of my favorite quotes of the Rev. Dr. Joan Gray who served this church as a pastor and served our denomination as Moderator of the General Assembly is, “What we don’t know, we make up, and what we make up is almost always worse than the truth.” What do we know about the future? To us, in this modern age, the future is not nearly so solid as the past. We have pictures of the past. There are no pictures of the future. However, while we can see the past we can’t go back there. While we can’t see the future, we are on our way there. And Revelation says that we must look to the future with hope, for the God who has been faithful to us in the past is waiting for us, changeless, as God has always been, in the future. The God who knit us together in our mother’s wombs Who walked beside us throughout all our days Is waiting for us. And in that place where God is waiting, we will have the chance to put right whatever regrets we have about the past. We will see those we miss face to face. And these words, this promise, I didn’t just make it up. I didn’t dream them on my ride to church this morning. No. These words are trustworthy and true. Thanks be to God. Amen.