Psalm 25:6-7
Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth
and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me,
for you are good, O LORD.
Last night the Session of SRPC met with some of the leadership of San Ramon Valley Gospel Church (SRVGC) to pray together. Meeting in the youth room and various classrooms of SRPC, SRVGC is a partner with us as we both seek His kingdom. We prayed through portions of Psalm 25 – which is the basis of my reflection today.
In ancient Greek thought, Homer taught Hades was the kingdom of lēthē (oblivion and forgetfulness). Its inhabitants are mute and unremembered. To put it into a parallel equation:
- Forgetting = silence = death
- Remembering = speech = life
It isn’t hard to imagine this as we struggle with our parents as Alzheimer’s sets in. The inability of remember often goes to silence. Hades or not, this forgetting/silence leads to a gradual decline to death.
Remembering is not simply nostalgia of the past – it is, in itself, a reengagement of life. We know this as we hear the stories of our families shared by Grandparents and parents. We hear the joys and struggles, the relocations of home and relationships; we take in the emotion and passion of life along with the plotline in the details.
In the Bible, remembering is also an act of reengagement. The focus, however, is often on the nature of God and covenantal grace God has established with us.
We pick up this sense when we read of the Noahic covenant in Genesis 9:15: “I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.”
To think of God as needing to or having to remember is odd. Our lives, however, are staked to this act of remembering. When we call for God to remember his covenantal promises to us, we are asking God to act in accordance with the covenant.
We can see this in Psalm 25, where David calls for God to remember and remember not! The basis of the covenant is God’s own character and attributes. Knowing this, David appeals to the great mercy and love which are from old, old times – indeed as old, so-to-speak, as God. That God would have mercy at all is rooted in His move toward us with a zeal of love and kindness, not judgment. David does this many times: he appeals to God on the basis of who God is rather than who David is. And this important truth is the key to “calling” out for God to remember.
If God does not remember – if God is silent – then there remains only loss for us. But if God remembers – and God speaks – then life is restored. So David confesses his sin – but he asks God to remember not his rebelliousness – his youthful transgressions. To those, David appeals for forgetfulness=silence=the death of judgment.
We see this again in Psalm 51. David has grievously sinned. Not as a youth, but as a King and leader of Israel and her military. Nonetheless, David begins his confession by appealing to the covenantal promises of God to be merciful: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Acknowledgement of sin absent from covenantal mercy results in either despair or apathy. David has no part of either – he is passionately broken in the Presence of God. But it is a brokenness that is also the result of God’s mercy to sensitize us to His heart: Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. (Ps. 51:8)
Israel understood (another act of remembering, but that for another time) that remembering was incumbent upon them, too. To quote from the Dictionary of New Testament Theology (ed. Colin Brown, vol. 3, pg 232):
The existence of the people of Israel, their faith in Yahweh as their savior and redeemer, their obedience to him as their sovereign and as Lord of history, their public worship—all these things are grounded in their experience of his gracious help in the past. Hence, at their festivals the people of God are publically called upon to remember, and as they do so, the same God who did such great things for them in the past, speaks to them once again at the present. In this way, at daily worship and at the recurring festivals, the words spoken, sung or heard take up redemptive history and turn it into something requiring present commitment.
We see this in the David’s request of God to, “Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” (Ps 25:4-5)
After David’s repentance in Psalm 51, and after being cleansed by God’s mercy and love, he knows this must result in present commitment:
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. – Psalm 51:12-15
Remembering God’s covenant toward us moves us in the moment to act out of His great love. David recommits to righteousness and to teaching the ways of God.
When we come to the Lord’s Table we are called to a new covenant and to a new remembering. Rooted in the salvific history of Israel in Temple, sacrifice, priesthood, atonement and grace, Jesus establishes a covenant of forgiveness written in his blood (Matt 26:28). He held forth the bread and spoke: “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19).
Remember what?
Remember that He is the Lamb of God, as John the Baptist declared, that takes away the sins of the world. Remember that He will drink it again with us in His kingdom. Remembering this sustains us in the present. Remembering this challenges us to act in keeping with the forgiveness we have received (John 15). Remembering this covenant calls for us to recount the goodness and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We approach the Holy season. In but a few days we, like Israel of old, will gather in order to remember: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter (Resurrection) Sunday. We will tell of His love and His new covenant. We will reflect on the depth of Jesus’ life as Son of Man and Son of God. We will tell of His goodness and the sweetness of grace received in the love of God through Christ.
And we will remember.
