The Lord Remembers
Torah readings for the days of Rosh Hashanah:
9/16 Genesis 21
9/17 Genesis 22
Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.
Gen 21:1
I find it interesting that the readings for a new year begin with the fulfillment of a promise rather than its giving. The order seems backwards to me, like counting a day from sunset rather than sunrise. But this is the genius of Jewish thinking. Both the day and the year begin with evidence of God’s faithfulness rather than our gutsy attempts to believe in the invisible.
The reading is appropriate for another reason. In Jewish tradition, the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are somewhat like Lent - a time to reflect upon our lives in the light of God’s holiness and mercy. They are days for recollection, repentance and reconciliation. God is said to open the records of His people’s lives, to consider and write the names of the righteous in the Book of Life. But the text for the day indicates that it is not only the deeds of men and women God recalls - God remembers His own word and acts upon it.
I love the fact that Sarah was old when the Lord remembered His promise to her. Of course, He had never forgotten, but He was waiting - waiting until all human hope was spent. Waiting until no one could doubt His role in Sarah’s pregnancy.
In the beginning, I think, we Gentiles saw ourselves more like Mary than Sarah. Salvation dawned upon us unexpectedly, joyfully. We were not expecting a Savior. We never imagined that the God of Israel cared for us. But He did - so much that He gave His only begotten Son to graft us into His eternal story and to write our names in the Book of Life. As Peter says, “Once we (Gentiles) were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Through mercy, we have become the people of God, inextricably tied to Israel and her story. Now that we are saved, we wait with Israel for the return of the Messiah. Together with Israel, we have received the promise of a King who will rule forever with justice.
Frankly, many of us, both Jew and Christian, have given up hope for that visible Kingdom. Our faith has grown old and withered, like Sarah. Many of us laugh inwardly when we hear talk of a coming Messiah. But the good news is that God has not forgotten. He has not grown weary or impotent. He remembers and He “watches over the word to perform it.” (Jer.1:12)