PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “Hard to Remember-Easy to Forget”.
By: Ron Woodrum
A wise man once said that important truths and events can be “hard to remember, and so easy to forget!” That is a truth we must never forget-and always remember. It is fearfully easy to forget great events and live as they had never occurred. George Bernard Shaw emphasizes that in his novel St. Joan. King Charles, who could have come to Joan’s rescue, but did not, and knew what an awful thing he had done. He never knew what cruelty was like until he saw the young girl burned to death. Shaw has King Charles dreaming that he is meeting Joan- after she is burned at the stake. He dreams that the chaplain tells him he was redeemed and saved by seeing the young girl burned to death. When told of the dream, Bishop Cauchon asks the chaplain, “were not the sufferings of Christ enough for you?”. The chaplain replies, “Oh no, not at all. I had seen them in pictures and read of them in books, and been greatly moved by them, as I thought. But it was no use.” Then Cauchon exclaims, “Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those who have no imagination?” Somehow, over the years, though still recorded in paintings and books, the death of Christ can lose its impact if it is not brought back before the eyes of every generation. “Hard to remember-easy to forget”.
It is frightfully easy to forget Calvary and to live as if that event had never taken place. There are, of course, times when we do become conscious of the truth. It may be at some quiet Communion service when the bread and juice are given as emblems of Christ’s sacrifice, or it may be at some high hour of dedication and commitment when the tides of the Spirit are running high and lives are deeply moved and freely offered. But the fogs close in; the horizons narrow; indifference and selfishness becomes the order of the day again, and we forget and go on living as if that event never took place. Following the crucifixion life moved on in Jerusalem, no doubt, about as it had before. There was the same bartering and haggling in the market place; the same shrewd financial deals in the places of exchange; things went on about the same way in the homes. There was not much change in people’s attitude toward God and men, toward the sacred and the holy. Anatole France, in his book Mother of Pearl, pictures Pilate as an old man talking to a friend. The friend mentions the crucifixion of Jesus. He asked,“Pontus, do you remember anything about the man?” After a long thoughtful pause, Pilate answers, “Jesus?-Jesus of Nazareth? I cannot call Him to mind”. I really doubt if Pilate forgot his encounter with Jesus. But I believe that such a tragedy can become a reality, as we let other things push His sacrifice to the periphery of history.
But there is one man who never forgot the day he encountered Calvary and the Christ. The great Scot preacher, Arthur John Gossip, in the Hero in Thy Soul, thinks that Simon of Cyrene is one man who never forgot the events of Calvary. He came into the city from the country just as the mob was moving toward Calvary. He saw the crowd, and in curiosity moved toward it, only to be compelled to help Jesus carry His cross. He may have protested, and became angry and humiliated at first. But he would likely remember the incident in another vein and spirit for the rest of his life. He would likely later say of the event-“Blessed be the privilege! Once more I am permitted to make His task a little lighter by participating in His suffering. Once in the long ago, by God’s grace, I was allowed to make the hill of calvary a little less severe; now, the privilege is mine again. Most gladly will I perform this deed in His name.” And so by acts great and small, by service that was easy and service that called for sacrifice, Simon kept that great event fresh in his mind and heart.
And that is how it has to be done if it is to be done at all. Let us never neglect nor depreciate the hours of quiet and sacred worship. We shall be utterly undone if we do. But, ultimately the only way to keep the cross of Christ vividly before us, fresh within us, so that it could perform its task through us, is to take up our own cross and go marching off after Him. For the cross of Calvary is not primarily a thing to be adored but a life giving truth to be lived. It must become a very part of of the lives that we live; it must be ground into the very soil and substance of our existence; its spirit and power must overshadow, undergird, overarch every act of life. It needs to become the standard by which we measure our own lives, action and everything about us.
The great English journalist and author, who became a Christian late in life, Malcolm Muggeridge found this truth to be real to him in a very personal way. He writes, in his book Jesus Rediscovered, “I would catch a glimpse of a cross, not necessarily a crucifix; maybe two pieces of wood accidently nailed together, on a telegraph pole, for instance-and suddenly my heart would stand still. In an instinctive and intuitive way I understood that something more important, more tumultuous, more passionate, was at issue than our good causes, however admirable they might be…It was, I know, an obsessive interest…I might fasten bits of wood together myself, or doodle it. This symbol, which was considered to be derisory in my home, was yet also the focus of inconceivable hopes and desires…As I remember this, a sense of my own failure lies leadenly upon me. I should have worn it over my heart; carried it, a precious standard never to be wrested out of my hands; it should have been my cult, my uniform, my language, my life. I shall have no excuse; I can’t say I didn’t know. I knew from the beginning and turned away.”
There is an old legend that said it was never safe to die until one had taken a stick and marked on the earth the sign of the cross. Legend or superstition? Of course, and yet! As is so often the case, a legend is basesd upon a great truth. For until we mark the earth, our work, our lives, our influence, with the cross we can neither live nor die rightly. Run that truth out into life and see its relevancy. Such a mark will help us keep the saving truth of Calvary something the world will never forget! “Hard to remember-easy to forget”. Not on our watch!