The One About Big Brothers, Memories, and Oral Surgery

Dear West Family

I have been thinking a lot about memory lately. These thoughts have been provoked by a few different things in my life. 

Firstly, I recently spent time with my two older brothers, and nothing can take you straight back to childhood like being around older siblings. I am a grown man, for the most part, and yet when I am with them, I am straight back to being the little brother and all that is associated with that. The memories are rich and vivid.

Secondly, we are facing the reality of some aging parents who are struggling with memory, an experience that must be way more frustrating and confounding for them than it is for us. It is a tough thing to watch, as memory is a key part of how we experience and inhabit the world and the time that is allotted to us with it. 

The third reason is that I had some oral surgery this week, an experience that I wouldn’t recommend. My doctor needed to remove a broken old molar that was underpinned by a root canal that had fragmented into the tissue surrounding my jaw. This meant going deep into my mouth with some instruments usually reserved for carpentry, and doing some pulling, scraping and drilling usually performed on sheet rock and lumber instead of gum, and tooth and jawbone. I told my doctor when I went in that if I was to endure the procedure (you have to be awake for it) I was going to need to be drugged to within an inch, or perhaps even a centimeter, of my life. He obliged and gave me a mix of drugs which meant that I have no recollection of the procedure. None. The yards of cross-stitching in my mouth tell me that it definitely happened but I cannot recall even a single moment of it. What a crazy thing memory is.

All this has had me thinking about Psalm 25. It speaks about (amongst other things) the malleable memory of God. It is phenomenal to think that God has a memory, one which isn’t subject to decay or dementia, and one that isn’t limited to the restrictions of time and space. God can remember everything that has ever happened, across all time!

And so David goes to God and asks Him to actively remember some things. 

“Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been of old.” - Ps 25:6

Memory in the Hebrew tradition isn’t simply a recall of an event. Rather, it is a revisitation, a reliving of what went before. It was part of the way that a largely oral tradition kept a record of a people with a unique origin story alive. Feasts and festivals and gatherings were ways to revisit memories, and to recall the goodness and faithfulness of God across generations. David asks the LORD to revisit his covenantal faithfulness and in so doing to act on his behalf as a recipient of that faithfulness.

But then he asks something else. 

“Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions …” - Ps 25:7a

David asks God to forget his sins, or said more rightly, to not remember them or to not revisit them. This is an amazing thought, as God’s knowledge is perfect and so He could never forget something, and yet He has the capacity to not revisit or actively recall the times when we have sinned against Him. I love how it is described in Hebrews 8:12 which says, “For I will be merciful toward their inequities, and I will remember their sins no more.” 

When we look back at our lives, there are many moments that we look back at with painful regret. They are memories that we wish we didn’t have. What a thing to consider that God chooses to not look back at those moments in our life. He doesn’t dwell on them or call them to mind so that He can use them against us. 

He doesn’t remember.

He can, but He doesn’t.

Oh dear friends, the grace of God is scandalous, and the memory of God is magnificent. When He looks at those of us who are in Christ, He remembers that we are only human (Ps 103:14) but He chooses to not remember the many ways that we have acted that humanity out. What a great thing it is to be loved by a God who has a long memory of faithfulness and a short memory of our rebellion.

Enjoy His grace.

The music this week is from Thrice and is a song about what death is like for a Christian. It has been on repeat in my house this week and is for two good men from our congregation who went to be with their Lord in this last week. 

See you soon Corey and Chris.

Thrice - "In Exile" [Official Video]

See you Sunday,

Ross