Dave Johnson
Sermon: “I Will Remember Your Sin No More” (Jeremiah 31:34)
October 20, 2013
This past summer, my family and I spent a day cleaning out our attic, a rather frightening experience. We came across a couple boxes containing various items from my childhood, things I hadn’t looked at in perhaps fifteen to twenty years: my first Redskins coat that I got in second grade, pictures of sports teams I played on in the late seventies and early eighties (yes kids, that’s me with the bucked teeth and bizarre haircut J), a Presidential Physical Fitness Award certificate “signed” by none other than then president Jimmy Carter, my cub scout uniform, and even a pair of Spiderman pajamas.
My kids especially got a kick out of looking through old yearbooks with me. I was surprised by the wide range of emotions I felt as so many memories were triggered. Some memories were hilarious—I literally laughed out loud at the pictures of some of my childhood friends with whom I played sports, cut up in class, explored the neighborhood, listened to rock ’n’ roll albums, and more than occasionally got in trouble.
Some of the pictures triggered wistful memories of childhood crushes (“You liked her, Dad? I can see that…”) or teachers who were especially kind to me (“That’s Mrs. Cole, my sixth grade teacher, the best teacher I ever had”). Other pictures evoked sadness or anxiety—a friend whose parents were so abusive, a bully who gave me so many knots in my stomach back in the day. But I’m glad I still have my old Redskins coat J.
This experience reminded me of a song by Paul Simon—“The Obvious Child” from his 1990 album Rhythm of the Saints—in which he describes a middle aged man trying to process the changes in his life:
Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself
How it's strange that some rooms are like cages
Sonny's yearbook from high school is down from the shelf
And he idly thumbs through the pages
Some have died
Some have fled from themselves
Or struggled from here to get there
Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls
He runs his hand through his thinning brown hair
Our memories are quite powerful. Memories of all kinds can be triggered unexpectedly by the way an afternoon breeze feels on a fall afternoon, the way a song on the radio immediately transports you to a specific moment in high school, the way the scent of certain tobacco reminds you of a beloved grandfather who is no longer around.
Some people have unbelievably powerful memories.
John von Neumann, a famous math professor at Princeton University in the mid-twentieth century, could memorize a column of a phone book with a single glance.
There is a British artist named Stephen Wiltshire who suffers from autism but can draw entire city skylines from memory. He once did a nineteen-foot long detailed drawing of New York City from memory after one twenty-minute helicopter ride.
Others have memories that are average or below average—perhaps you’ve studied really hard for an exam only to forget some answers while taking it—and as soon as you turn in the exam you remember every one of those answers.
Or perhaps like me you have trouble remembering why you went to the grocery store and arrive home to be asked if you remembered the milk only to think, “That’s why I went to the store” and you answer, “I forgot the milk, but I did get some Little Debbie snack cakes” J.
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Road, Cormac McCarthy recounts the journey of a man and his young son, who are struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Early on in their journey McCarthy writes:
“They passed through the city at noon… (The father) kept the boy close to his side. The city was mostly burned. No sign of life. Cars in the street caked with ash, everything covered with ash and dust…He pulled the boy closer.
“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever,” he said. “You might want to think about that.”
(His son replied), “You forget some things, don’t you?”
“Yes” (replied the father) “You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget” (p. 12).
This is often the case with our relationship with God, isn’t it?
You forget things you want to remember—that God’s love is unconditional—love with no ulterior motives, no strings attached, no catch, that nothing can separate you from the love of God, that you are fully known, fully loved, fully forgiven.
And you remember the things you want to forget—hurtful things you have done and said to others, traumatic experiences from your childhood, stressful things that have left lines on your face and a limp in your heart.
Today I’m preaching about a verse about memory from the Old Testament reading from Jeremiah. Jeremiah was born around 650 B.C. and was called to be a prophet while still a young boy. His prophetic ministry spanned over half a century as the Kingdom of Judah became more and more apostate until finally being conquered by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. Jeremiah remained in Jerusalem and saw the worst of the worst. He cried a lot and was known as the “weeping prophet.”
In today’s reading from Jeremiah, the weeping prophet points to a future when God will establish a new covenant:
“This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord… I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more” (31:33-34).
The heart of this new covenant is forgiveness: “I will forgive your iniquity,” God says, “and remember your sin no more.”
The saying “Forgive and forget” is catchy, but rarely a true human experience. Even when we do forgive, we rarely forget. Cormac McCarthy is right: often the things that are put in our heads stay there forever.
But while “forgive and forget” is rarely true with us, it is always true with God—“I will remember your sin no more.”
This past week on the church calendar, on October 16, two of my heroes were commemorated—Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. Latimer and Ridley were two Anglican bishops who were martyred in the mid-1500’s during the reign of Bloody Mary. They died for their Protestant beliefs—primarily that we are saved by faith alone in the finished work of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Hugh Latimer, considered the greatest preacher of the English Reformation, preached about what it looks like that God remembers your sins no more:
“Christ reputeth all those for just, holy, and acceptable before God, which believe in Him, which put their trust, hope and confidence in Him. By His passion which He suffered, He merited that as many as believe in Him shall be as well justified by Him as though they themselves had never done any sin, and as though they had fulfilled the law to the uttermost… as I told you before, our merits are not able to deserve everlasting life. It is too precious a thing to be merited by man. It is His doing only. God hath given Him to us to be our Deliverer, and to give us everlasting life.”
Another illustration… in his classic book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning recounts the true story of a Catholic woman who had reportedly had visions of Jesus. The local bishop got wind of this and set up a meeting with her.
“Is it true, ma’am, that you have visions of Jesus?” he asked. Yes. “Well, the next time you have a vision, I want you to ask Jesus to tell you the sins that I confessed in my last confession.”
The woman was stunned. Did I hear you right, bishop? You actually want me to ask Jesus to tell me the sins of your past? “Exactly. Please call if anything happens.”
Ten days later the archbishop heard back from this lady, and he said to her, “Did you do what I asked?” Yes, bishop, I asked Jesus to tell me the sins you confessed in your last confession. The bishop leaned forward with anticipation. His eyes narrowed. “What did Jesus say?” Bishop, she replied, these are his exact words…I can’t remember.
Manning concludes, “Christianity happens when men and women accept with unwavering trust that their sins have not only been forgiven but forgotten, washed away in the blood of the Lamb” (The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 118-119).
And the blood of the Lamb cleanses you from every sin, even the most notorious ones. In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, confronts his mother Gertrude about her complicity in the murder of her former husband (and Hamlet’s father), after which she cries out:
“O Hamlet, speak no more!
Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and gained spots
As will not leave their tinct” (III, 4, 89-92).
While your sins may be like Gertrude’s— “such black and gained spots as will not leave their tinct”—Jesus’ blood is still stronger, and the grace and mercy and forgiveness in Jesus’ blood never loses its tinct.
This is very good news, especially for those who “have fled from themselves
or struggled from here to get there.” And because God remembers your sins no more, it means you have permission to forgive yourself too.
One of my favorite books is Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie (1997). Mitch had attended Brandeis University and had become friends with a sociology professor named Morrie. Many years later Mitch, who was living in Detroit at the time, got word that Morrie was dying of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). For fourteen straight weeks, Mitch flew to Massachusetts every Tuesday and spent the afternoon with his dying friend. A couple weeks before he died, Morrie said this to Mitch:
“Forgive yourself before you die… It’s not just other people we need to forgive, Mitch. We also need to forgive ourselves… for all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done. You can’t get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened. That doesn’t help you when you get to where I am. I always wished I had done more with my work; I wished I had written more books. I used to beat myself up over it. Now I see that never did any good… Forgive yourself… Don’t wait, Mitch. Not everyone gets the time I’m getting. Not everyone is as lucky” (p. 164-167).
In Jesus’ death on the cross, God indeed established the New Covenant about which Jeremiah prophesied nearly six centuries before. In fact, in the New Testament the writer to the Hebrews directly connects Jeremiah’s prophecy of God remembering your sins no more to Jesus’ death on the cross:
12 “When Christ* had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, ‘he sat down at the right hand of God’… For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. 15And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us…‘I will remember their sins… no more.’” (Hebrews 10:12; 14-15; 17).
In other words, as biblical scholar Charles Feinberg puts it: “What grace forgives, divine omniscience forgets” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews, p. 577).
When I was in high school, one of my favorite rock bands was the Scottish band, Simple Minds. One perfect spring day I was in the parking lot at school during lunch with some of my friends, and we had Simple Minds cranking from my cassette player (yes, cassette player J). One of the teachers walked over to us and grimaced, “What are you listening too?” “Simple Minds,” I replied. He glanced at all of us for a moment quipped, “How appropriate,” and walked away. The biggest hit Simple Minds had was a song they wrote for the soundtrack of the classic John Hughes movie, The Breakfast Club: “Don’t You Forget about Me.”
And yet, because we often forget what we want to remember and remember what we want to forget, Jesus did something else for us the night before dying on the cross: he instituted Holy Communion. He took bread and broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And then Jesus himself connected the new covenant of which Jeremiah prophesied to the blood he would shed the next day on the cross: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (I Corinthians 11:24-25).
In other words, when we receive Holy Communion Jesus reminds us, “Don’t you forget about me… don’t forget that I love you so much that I died on the cross for you… don’t forget that I remember your sins no more.”
Back to Hugh Latimer for a moment… on Wednesday, October 16, 1555 Bishop Hugh Latimer, who was 68 years old, and Bishop Nicholas Ridley, who was 55, were led to their execution. After being chained together to a stake, as the fire was being lit, Latimer looked at Ridley and said this:
“Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”
Latimer was right: the light of God’s grace has never been put out.
For six centuries after Jeremiah wept over Jerusalem, another Weeping Prophet, Jesus Christ, indeed established a New Covenant in the blood he shed on the cross.
And the good news of the gospel is that God remembers your sins no more.
Amen.
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