For their thirtieth anniversary my
father wanted to do something really special for my mother. It had always bothered him that he was unable
to get my mother a diamond engagement ring when they were young, so he decided
he would get her a diamond ring that year.
After looking at several different rings he decided up one of those
rings that have three diamonds all in a row.
The lady at the jewelry shop, who sold it to him, told him it was called
a yesterday, today and forever ring.
Each diamond in the ring symbolized a
different facet of their love. The first
diamond stood for their love of the past, the second was for their love today
in the present and the third diamond symbolized their love tomorrow and into
the future. It is a way of saying the
love of the past is what has brought them to this point in their relationship,
i.e. their thirtieth anniversary, and the love of both yesterday and today is
what will lead them to their love in the future.
All Saints Sunday is like a Past, Present,
Future ring for the Church. Today we celebrate
and remember how Christ has worked through the lives of Christians, in the
past, and how their lives which so exemplified faith, affect who we are as
Christians today and at the same time we look to the future thinking about the
Christians who come after us and think about the quality of the legacy faith we
are leaving for them.
During the service we have shared
faith stories of saints, Christians who have gone on before us, whose lives
spoke volumes about who Christ is and who Christ is calling each of us to be. It is their lives and lives of thousands of
Christians like them have brought the church to the place it is today and their
lives and as well as our lives, for we are the saints of the future, are what
will bring the church forward into the generations to come.
All Saints Sunday is a Past, Present,
Future ring for the Church and this passage highlights the same kind of idea of
looking at the past has brought us to where we are today, and how what we
choose to do today determines the kind of future we have together as the people
of God. Let’s begin with the past. The children of Israel as they stood waiting
to enter the promise land were standing on the promises the Lord had made, and
the miracles the Lord had done in the past.
God had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob each in turn that their
ancestors would someday inherit the land before which they were standing that
day. These Israelites knew first hand
what every high school history teacher tells her class as they continually
struggle with obscure facts, names and dates of people and events that are long
gone. History is the building blocks for
today; everything which has brought us to today is a result of what has gone on
in the past. A people who cuts itself
off from the past, cuts themselves off from the very thing that holds them up
and allows them to stand where they stand, causing the foundation of all that
makes them who they are to crumble and fall.
Israel knew they could not cut
themselves off from the past, because the past contained their promise to God
and God’s promise to them; his promise to take care of them and protect them,
his promise to lead them and to guide them, but most importantly it contained his
promise to give the descendants of their ancestors, in other words them, the
land into which they are about to enter.
Also they could not forget because the relationship with God which their
ancestors had in the past, brought about the promise God was full filling in
them by bringing them into the Promised Land.
Even though they knew this, God made sure to remind them that God was
not merely giving this land to them, because God felt like it, or because it
seemed like a good thing to do at the time, but God was doing it because God had
promised their ancestors that someday their children would be given this land
and God does not go back on promises.
Like the ring, the passage not only
speaks about the past, but it speaks of the present. It is fine and good that God promised to give
this land to these people’s ancestors, but God required the people who stood to
receive; the people there on this day, that they were to love the Lord their
God with all their hearts, with all their souls and with all their might. They were there because of their ancestors
but they could not stand on the faith of their ancestors without making it
their own. There was a stipulation to the promise; two halves. God had said I will be your God and you will
be my people. I will give you this land
and you will worship and obey me all the days of your lives. It was a pretty fair trade and needed to be
made over again with this new generation.
God expected these people to be in
relationship God, to walk in righteousness before God, just as their ancestors,
to whom God had made the promise, had done.
God did not require anything new or special of them, which was not
required of the generations who gone before them. God merely wanted them to love God with their
whole beings, with all their heart, with all their souls and will all their
might; simply to love the Lord with all they were. Not much to ask for, considering, God promised
to love them back; to guide them and take care of them. Obedience is a fair trade to have the God who
created the whole universe on your side, loving you and looking out for
you. Not a bad deal considering land for
each and every one of them to build homes and raise their families on was
included as well.
As they stood on the edge of the
promise land God spoke to them about the past, the present and the future. God told
them, they were to obey God’s command to love, but not only did God want their love,
but God wanted their children and their children’s children love as well. God did not just want to make promises with
living people, God wanted the living to pass this promise down to their
children, just as the promise had been passed down to them.
God does not passively wish their
children and their children’s children will fear the Lord and continue to live
up to the promises that were made, but God tells them what they need to do to
be sure this promise and the command that goes along with it, is transferred to
each new generation.
God tells them they are to immerse
their lives and the lives of their children in this command to love God. They are to first of all tell their children
about it. They are to recite it to
them. It is to be so well known to them that
they have it memorized and they can recite it to their children from memory in
hope that their children will also commit it to memory. But not only are they to recite it and
encourage their children to also commit it to memory, but they are to talk
about it. They are to talk about it when
they are at home, when they are away from home, when they get ready for bed and
when they get up in the morning. The
command to love God should be such a part of their lives that it is
incorporated into every part of their life.
There should be no part of their lives that is not touched by this
command. It is to surround everything
they do and become a part of every day life.
It is not something that should only be talked about when they go to the
temple or only when they are in trouble and need God, but it is to be talked
about at all time, in everything they do and in this way become a part of every
aspect of their lives.
Their homes are to be so filled with
the love of God that it is as if it is nailed to the doors of their house, so
they litter did this to remind them of this fact. It is to be so much apart of
what they think that they are to bind the command to their forehead. It is to be so much a part of what they do
and their actions that they are to bind them to their hand. The love of God is to totally encompass every
part of their lives. In this way they
can teach their children about God and God’s command to love, and thus ensuring
that this promise which was passed down to them from their father’s and their
father’s fathers, will be passed down to their children and their children’s
children.
Like the ring my father gave to my
mother which spoke of their love of the past, their love of the present, and
their future love, God speaks to the people of Israel as they are getting ready
to enter the holy land, about the past, the present and the future as well. They are to remember they are where they are
today because of their ancestors who came before them and the promises God made
with them and the promises they made with God.
They are to be concerned with the present by loving the Lord in the way God
commanded them to. Last but not least
they are to look to the future by so filling their lives with the teachings of
the Lord and his command for them to love God, they will be teaching their
children in all they do and all they say to do the same, so their children and
their children’s children will also love and obey God, ensuring the promise be
preserved.
We are like the Israelites we are
looking into the future and what has promised for us and we also need to heed
the words God spoke to the Israelites as they stood looking into the promise
land and what God had in store for them.
We stand in the middle between the
past and the future. We are to look to
the past and learn from and build on the faith of all the Christians who have
gone before us. Their lives are testimonies
to us about how we are to live our lives, and their words are words of wisdom which
teach us how to live our lives loving God the way that God has called us to
live them. They might not always have
done things we approve or of we are proud, but we are in good company, as the
Israelites looked back at those who had gone before them, the lives of those
who had gone before them had not always been expletory. After all look at Abraham and his habit of lying
about Sarah being his wife (a habit he unfortunately passed down to Isaac), or
a Jacob and how dishonest he was with almost everyone which whom he dealt. We are to still look to those who have gone
before us, drawing from their triumphs and learning from their failures, and
also rest assured in the fact that if God used those rascally people in the
past God surely can and will us today.
We like the Israelites are not to
only look to the past but we are to look to the future, because we are the
saints of the future, we should be sure our lives are lives that will teach the
next generation what it means to love the Lord with our whole beings and to
obey God all the days of our lives, so our children and our children’s children
will love the Lord. Just as the saint of
the past have passed their faith down to us, teaching us and showing us how to
love the Lord, we also are to teach the love of God in all we say and all we
do, so that the Christians of the generations to come can look to us and learn
to love God the way we have.
We are always standing in the middle
owing where we are and who we are in Christ to the lives of so many who have
gone on before us, while at the same time knowing those who come after us will
also owe their Christian walks and their faith to us who will have gone before
them. All saints day is a day to
remember we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before
us and helped show us how to love the Lord and it also reminds us of our
responsibility to those who come after us.
We follow the lights of the Christians that have gone before us and
helped show us the way and we are to look to those who come behind us and show
them the way in everything we do and everything we say.
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