Our Best Memories Are Before Us:

A Homecoming Sermon

Hebrews 11:8-19

First of all, I would like to thank you for inviting me back here to speak this homecoming Sunday. I have fond memories of you all and remember you regularly in my prayers that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ would bless you abundantly.

Homecoming is a day in which we look back to our past. We think of songs like Precious Memories in which we return to remember the scenes of our earlier life. I think this is altogether fitting that we take time to reflect. We have remembered this day by your decorating the graves in the cemetery, singing, this service, and afterwards dinner on the grounds.

We find comfort in our past, especially as we face the challenges of the present. Life seemed so simpler then. Time indeed heals many wounds, but the good memories linger on. We can still smell momma’s apple pie and the times we enjoyed in the days of our youth. Shakespeare had Marc Anthony say that the evil memories of a person are what is remembered whereas the “good is interred with the bones.” But quite the opposite is true.

As we remember the blessings of God in our past, we also have to reflect on the times of difficulty we have faced. We have faced great wars, and some of you know of the knock on the door and the dreaded telegram delivered from the President and the Secretary of War that our loved one had died fighting for our country. There are several of them buried in the cemetery here whom we remember this Memorial Day weekend. I want to thank you all for marking out the graves of our veterans including my father. This was the original purpose of Memorial Day, and I thank you all for remembering this tradition from our past.

Others here have experienced the awful loss of a child or have faced some great tragedy in your life. Not all memories of the past are good ones. So even after we sing and eat and give our thanks there is still a hole in our hearts that all this celebration cannot fill. We still come to Jordan’s stormy banks and cast a wistful eye as we await the full repair of this hole in our heart.

So how do we come to wholeness of heart. I think the lesson from the Scripture tells us. The original hearers of the Book of Hebrews also lived in difficult times. Some of them had been expelled from their homes and hometowns because of their confession of faith in Jesus Christ. This must have been traumatic as they had to wander from place to place. Hebrews says to show hospitality to these wandering Christians when they came knocking upon the doors of other Christians. To lose one’s citizenship meant to lose one’s identity. Just think what it would be like to be removed from the rolls as an American citizen and cast out of this country without the prospects of ever returning. Many Christians even to this day are experiencing exile and wander about looking for someone to receive them.

So how does Paul address these poor wanderers? He goes to the memories of the past people of God, the cloud of witnesses here in the 11th chapter. The one he give the most attention to is Father Abraham. He once lived in one of the most modern cities of his day, the city of Ur which is in the delta of modern day Iraq. Only Egypt could rival it for splendor. The indications are that Abraham by his name “Abram” lived a pretty comfortable life there. But one day the call came to his father, and the family moved from Ur to Haran at the edge of the desert. We really don’t know about the circumstances, other than it originated in the call of God. But in Haran, after the death of Abraham’s father, the call of God came to him. Even this place of refuge was to be left behind. He was to go to the place which God had called him to. Abraham believed and went out, not knowing anything about this land God had promised to him and to his descendants. If we follow the life of Abraham. He spent most of his life in the wilderness as a nomad. He always seemed to be at the very fringe of Canaan land, He could see the land of milk and honey even as Moses did, but death kept him from any possession of God’s promise. He and Sarah’s burial plot was their only possession.

Abraham and Sarah’s lives were filled with conflict, just like ours. Perhaps at times they looked for comfort of the past, to more stable times. Perhaps it was during the great famine that Abraham remembered to the good times in Ur. But instead of returning there, he went to the other major advanced civilization he knew about, that of Egypt. But Egypt whose name in Hebrew is related in meaning to the word “graveyard” turned out to be a dead end. Soon the Lord intervened and made it possible to return to the fringes of the desert of Canaan Land to continue his wanderings.

It the drudge of petty wars and the mundane days of finding pasture in the desert for sheep, Abraham may have wondered about when the land would be his. Then the Lord told him that it would not be in his lifetime, but 400 years later, his descendants would occupy it. How this could have dashed Abraham’s faith. The only thing he possessed was the sure promise of God concerning his future. Jesus tells us that Abraham saw even beyond the endless wait for the promised Isaac, he saw the day 2000 years later that another descendant would pave the way for our possession of even a greater Promised Land, a better Canaan, the true Beulah Land. He rejoiced and saw that day and was glad. He saw a city that was not build by human hands, but by God. The cities of Canaan Land of Abraham’s day paled in comparison to the City of God. They even paled in comparison to either the Ur or Egypt of Abraham’s day. But he learned to be content in the promise of God, a promise that death could not annul. Not only this, but death became the means of entering this greater city. This was not the City of the Dead of Egyptian lore, but the City whose foundation was laid and upon it the city built by God himself. This is the city made for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by the God of the living and not of the dead. In his struggle, Abraham’s best memories lay in the future and not in the past.

The true pilgrim is one who has the same faith as Abraham and the others that Hebrews lays out in this roll call of faith. We know that we shall enter this city as well through the gate of death. This is not our death, but rather the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on a cross. We may ge there by the road of death or the Lord may return while we are yet alive. But we have the sure hope that this Jesus who died, rose again and ascended to the right hand of the Father as our great High Priest, to comfort and guide us through the wilderness of life. Good things or ill in this earthly life might lie before us. Abraham received many blessings in this life as well as trials. But as his best memories lay in the future, our best memories lie in our future as well. This should serve to give us comfort in this life.

The hole our memories of the past cannot fill shall be filled by the better memories of our glorious memories which are coming if we only believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t know all the details of this glorious city. Like Abraham and Moses and the other faithful saints of old. All we get is a glimpse of it. Ah, but what a glimpse! O the glory of it all! And as that old song say, “the half has never yet been told!” Whatever we see in a glimpse will pale in comparison to the day in which we enter that city. But in the meanwhile, the glimpse is enough to sustain us as we wander about in this life. We can sing the song “Beulah Land,” especially the line: “I’m kind of homesick for a country, which I’ve never seen before.”

As for those whom we remember today by placing flowers on the graves, the flowers will soon fade. But God’s promises can never fade. Next year, if the Lord tarries, we will return here again. The names of more loved ones who have departed this life shall be read. It will be a time of glad remembrance. We will decorate, sing, worship, and pray. And among the fond memories, we shall shed tears. But let them be tears of joy and hope, and not just the tears of sorrow. Let the tears which are shed when you leave this life be the tears shed in hope because you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope these few words which I have spoken here this morning be an encouragement to you. We must remember that after mourning comes morning, the morning of the Eternal Day. May the Lord bless you and make it possible for us to meet again in this place. But know if we don’t meet in this beautiful place which has been lovingly decorated this morning, let it be so that we shall meet again in a more beautiful place. God be with you till we meet again. Amen.