Remember How He Told You

Easter comes and goes so quickly … but it leaves us with much to remember …

Remember How He Told You

Isaiah 65:17-25;  Luke 24:1-12 

Human memory is, at the same time, both sturdy and fragile. Taken as a whole, human memory is the sturdy tool that makes it possible for us to know both our collective history and our personal stories. Yes, we use books, songs, and artifacts of various kinds to assist our remembering, but those are just tools. It is our determination to keep the past alive, to honor it, learn from it, and sometimes repent from it that stretches our horizon out in time.

And yet human memory is also very fragile.

Our individual memories can be influenced by nostalgia, wishful thinking, and suggestions from other people. Our histories, no matter how objectively we try to write them, are embedded in particular times and places – times and places that shape the way we shape the stories. And our ability to recall those histories is often compromised by fatigue, hunger, confusion or pain.

I have always loved the word “remember.” It comes from the same root word as “memory,” of course, a word that might be translated as “being mindful over a delay.” That has always disappointed me a little bit; I would like it to have come from the same root word as “member” – a root that is related to flesh and body parts and communities. I would like re-membering to be repairing and restoring the parts of our bodies, and repairing and restoring the fabric of our communities.

I suppose it is my background as a research psychologist that makes this alternative etymology so appealing. We usually think of memory as a sort of passive thing, rather like searching for a fact in an encyclopedia. All we have to do is look in the right place, and we will find the information that we seek. But studies of memory have shown that memory is actually a very active and constructive process. Each time we recall something, we are really mentally building it, making it into a story. We bring together the elements in ways that are meaningful and well, memorable.

And that, it seems to me, is exactly what the “two men in dazzling clothes” were asking of the women who came to the tomb looking for the body of Jesus.

Among other things, this not-exactly-accurate etymology would change that way we hear the words spoken by the “two men in dazzling clothes.” What they said was “Remember how he told you …” Imagine with me that these two heavenly messengers were not asking the women to recall a specific prediction that Jesus had made, but were asking them to put together the substance of all that they had heard and learned from him and about him.

If they did that, they might remember the day of his baptism in the Jordan River, when the Holy Spirit descended like a Dove and the voice from heaven said, “You are my Son the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” [Luke 3:22] They might remember hearing how he overcame the temptations in the wilderness, and how he healed the sick. They might remember his promises: that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor, that those who mourn will be comforted, that the meek will inherit the earth and the hungry will be filled, that the pure in heart will see God. They might remember the stories he told, stories in which poor and marginalized people come to the center, in which the normal order of life was turned upside down, and in which the character of God could be known. They might remember his verbal sparring with the officials at the temple in Jerusalem, or the day he overturned the tables of the moneychangers there. They might recall the sad and violent events of his last few days, and their sorrow at his dying. They might even have remembered the ancient words of the prophet Isaiah, writing hundreds of years before: “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth …no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in [Jerusalem] or the cry of distress.” [Isaiah 65:17, 19]

As is so often the case, the text here is very brief: “Then they remembered his words …” [Luke 24:8]. I like to think of them reconstructing, in those few moments, their heart’s image of Jesus. As they added one recollection to another, as they saw the patterns and recalled some of the words, as they wove them all together, they might have re-membered Jesus; they might have put his words of his mouth and the travels of his feet and the work of his hands back together in a way that the Resurrection no longer seemed surprising or unexpected, but entirely predictable and predicted.

When the women remembered his words, “they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.” [Luke 24:9] And that – if I may continue to follow this not-quite-accurate word study – that leads to another kind of re-membering, the rebuilding of the community.

We have only small glimpses of the disciples following the Crucifixion and Resurrection — glimpses that suggest they were scattered and disheartened. In the book of Matthew, they gathered with Jesus on a mountain in Galilee, where “they worshiped him, but some doubted.” (Matthew 28:17]. Mark ends his story with the women terrified and not sharing the news at all. In Luke, Jesus appeared to two people on the road to Emmaus, and then to the disciples back in Jerusalem, where they were “startled and terrified.” [Luke 24:37]. At the end of the gospel of John, the disciples locked themselves in a room when Jesus appears to them, and later they fail to recognize him on the beach while they are fishing.

But by the beginning of the book of Acts, the followers of Jesus have come back together, and when they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, they are ready to work together, to carry the message into all the world. We do not know how that happened, but we can imagine that it took a great deal of re-membering – of talking together, retelling the stories of Jesus life, and re-telling the stories that he told. We can imagine that rebuilding that community took the same time and effort and leadership that building a community requires in our time.

We, of course, come to the empty tomb in our time, not in the first century. We come to the empty tomb worried and afraid and sad. We come to the tomb knowing something about betrayal and violence and death. We come to the tomb with our weaknesses and our sorrows, our destructive choices and our greedy habits, our deep wounds and desperate hopes.

For some of us, when we come to the tomb, we will meet those two men in dazzling clothes. And they will say to us, as they did to Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the Mother of James, and the other women: “Remember how he told you …” Those words will bring it all back.

Others of us will come to the tomb like Peter, peering into the dark and empty tomb with anxiety and curiosity in equal measures – for remember, he had betrayed Jesus on the night of his death. And then the sight of the empty tomb and the cast-away linen cloths will call us to remember how he told us ..

But for most of us, the invitation to remember comes in small, everyday ways. When we hear a word of forgiveness from a friend, and reconciliation begins – we remember. When a companion speaks a hard word of truth to us and we hear the love that it speaks – we remember. When we see a migrating crane in flight, or the blossoms of the pasque flower, or the light dappling through the branches of a still-bare tree – we remember. When the trick candle won’t go out or the assembled choir sings the Halleluja Chorus or a church member asks for a prayer – we remember.

We remember ourselves deep into the mystery of Easter: that life is stronger than death, that love is stronger than hate, that mercy is stronger than revenge, that peace is stronger than violence, and that the love that holds us in our lives does not falter with our deaths. We remember how he told us … and we rejoice with our brothers and sisters through all times and in all places: Alleluia, Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Allelulia.