Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text today is the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah chapter 49, especially the last verse, “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” Thus far our text.
Dear friends in Christ. A husband had gone out for a work meeting, and his wife had kindly and lovingly asked him if he would do her a favor while he was out. “I’m making your favorite desert as a special surprise for you, but in order to make it, I need some more eggs. Can you pick them up on your way home from work?” “Of course dear” the husband replied, excited to get chocolate cake, with whipped cream and fudge on top. Throughout the day, the man drooled while thinking about the wonderful dessert that his wife was making. But then he got a phone call, and was distracted. Then his boss came in to ask him a question. Then he had his meeting, and it was long and stressful. Exhausted at the end of the day, the husband got in his car and drove home. As he walked in the door, the wife asked him, “Did you grab the eggs?” And that is when it hit him, he had forgotten the eggs. He had forgotten the promise he made to his wife, and now because of it, he would get no cake.
Friends, we all know people who have forgotten things. We all know people who have said they would do something, and then they haven’t. We ourselves are all guilty of this all the time. It is easy to do, and we know that everyone forgets, everyone makes mistakes. Everyone that is, except for one. God himself does not forget the promises that he has made to you.
GOD DOES NOT FOGET YOU, BECAUSE OUR TEXT SAYS YOU ARE ENGRAVED UPON HIS HANDS.
But sometimes in this world, it doesn’t seem that way. Sometimes it feels like God has forgotten us. That God hasn’t remembered the promises that he has made to us. And sometimes we get angry at God because we think that he has forgotten us.
The people in our text today felt that way. In it, Isaiah writes, “Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.’” Isaiah was writing about the year 700 BC while he was living in the city of Jerusalem. Isaiah in his lifetime witnessed the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians, and also a failed invasion of his own home, the kingdom of Judah. As Isaiah wrote, his own home nation was growing weaker and weaker, and many people were losing their lives in these wars and battles.
To some in Isaiah’s day, it seemed like God was no longer keeping his promises to them. To some, it seemed like God had forgotten them. After all, God had promised them when they entered the land “Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates-- all the Hittite country-- to the Great Sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life.” And now invaders were slowly defeating the armies of Israel and Judah. Had God forgotten them? Was God too busy with other things to remember them?
But what so many people of Isaiah’s day didn’t realize was that they had forgotten God, not the other way around. They hadn’t obeyed God’s command. They hadn’t heard God’s word. They had turned from God’s holy people into adulterers, sexual deviants and blasphemers, worshiping the false gods of Baal and Ashtoreth. God had not forgotten them, but in their sin, they had forgotten God, and because of it, they were facing the earthly consequences.
Friends, do you ever feel like God has forgotten you? Do you ever feel like maybe God hasn’t kept all of his promises, and that you are alone, and ignored – with nowhere to turn? It is easy for us to do in this sinful world.
It is easy, because sometimes we have a loved one who is sick, a loved one who has cancer, or Alzhiemers, or Parkinson’s, or a loved one falls and breaks a hip or another bone. We pray, “Lord please take this affliction from me, please rescue my loved one from this disease.” And as we pray, they get worse and worse. God are you there, or have you forgotten us?
Sickness is not the only way that we feel isolated and alone in this world. There are all sorts of other sins and trials that we face. In our midst we have families torn apart by fighting and bickering, often times over silly little things. We even get in fights in our own church family, often over little things, and soon they become large and unmanageable. We daily face sin on an unimaginable scale as we deal with depression and abuse, sex, violence and mental illness. Divorce, and war, death and famine. All of these things are before the people sitting right here today, and so we ask, just as in our text, “God don’t you remember me? God, have you forgotten us?” And often times we feel like when we ask that question in our prayers, that the only answer we receive is silence.
But friends, just like the people living in Isaiah’s day, God has not forgotten you, so much as you have forgotten God, and the rescue that God put in place for you. God sent his own Son, Jesus Christ, to come and be with you in the midst of your suffering. To be with you as you deal with murder, adultery, and fighting. Christ came, because he remembered you, and remembered the promise that he has made to you, a promise of rescue and peace. Christ remembers you, because you are engraved into his own palm. Engraved with nails that pierced those palms and nailed them to the rough wood of a cross where He hung for six hours, until he finally died in your place. Those nail marks remained there on his body, as he remembered you even in death, and as he laid in the tomb for three days.
And those nail marks are still there as he rose from the dead, and the first thing he did was remember his brothers and disciples, to visit them and say, “Be not afraid, I am going to my Father and your Father.” Thomas himself could see the promise engraved in Jesus’ hands, as he put his finger in the nail marks. God remembers you, dear friends. Christ remembers you, and has died in your place.
And now, Christ still gives his promises to you, his unforgettable brothers and sisters. He has washed you in the blood that poured from that hand in baptismal waters. He created faith in your hearts so that you might always love and cherish him. In your baptism, Christ has so engrained you into himself, that you bear the name of God, for you were baptized into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Christ’s name is placed upon you, and as such, he will never leave you nor forsake you.
Friends, sometimes in this world there are struggles, struggles during which we feel like God has abandoned or forgotten us. But Christ has not forgotten, and will lead you to eternity one day, apart from pain and sufferings. As our text says, Jesus says “to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’ to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear.’ they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them.” You have peace, and have no fear of being forgotten. You are Christ’s. Amen.
