Against the terrible forgetting

You and I – we only have one chance

Seven years ago I was standing in a village cemetery somewhere in England.  It was clear that no one had stood in front of these slanting grave stones for a long time.  A lonely place.  On one stone slab I read the short resumé of him who has faded from life.  He was a professor at Oxford University.  Without a doubt he was a recognised personality during his lifetime.  But now he is lost in the mists of time.  Only dust and bones.  I wonder in which death statistic he was included.  He died in England after the First World War.  But now, he is nameless, ephemeral, gone.

I assume that every human being wants to be more than a bundle of emotions for a mere 60 or 80 years.  Was a stringing together of hypes everything that made me who I am?  Have we been blown away by the wind of chance and time? Hopeless, pointless and aimless?

Just before Jesus Christ died two thousand years ago a short conversation took place with the criminal hanging next to him.  I have no idea why that man stammered such words.  But it expresses exactly that what I and perhaps you feel: “Lord, think of me, when you come in your kingdom!”

We humans are so miserably forlorn.  And irrespective from which angle you look at it our life will end with tears and departing.  Melancholy and fear, faded memories and silence.

How often do I pray out loud “O Lord, think of me in your kingdom!

Do not forget me when others have forgotten me many times over.  I can only find real peace, if I know that you will thinking of me in eternity!”

And Jesus answered him: “I tell you the truth: today you will be with me in Paradise.”

We can be a shooting star on Twitter or the CEO of an international company.  Perhaps we live rough in a train station or rent a small flat in a huge block of flats.  But irrespective of who we are and where we live, if Jesus promises us that one day we will live with him in heaven, then we can sleep in peace tonight, not needing any medication to assist us.

The Prophet Isaiah writes in chapter 43, verse 1: “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” /KDJ

Sooner or later our life will also be hanging on a silk thread and we will sob: “Lord, please remember me!”
Click to access the login or register cheese