April 17- The Wednesday morning class has been going through the book of Acts word by word, sentence by sentence. Tabitha or Dorcas, gazelle, is what we could call a saint, a model Christian, a good Christian woman. Like grieving people, they want to share stories about her. They cluth to keepsakes she made for them.256) Keepsakes are important. In Acts 9, the people show the things that Tabitha made for them. They don't have to be important or valuable in money. They are little sacramental tangible items that connect us to the person who has died.they are small incarnations of love. What are some keepsakes that mean the most to you? Did arguments ensue over who would get certain keepsakes? Why do you prize certain keepsakes? Do they pick up an interest, a quality of your loved one? I saw a piece of Tim Allen's sitcom Home Improvement where Ernest Borgnine plays a widower who spoke of arguing with his wife over some ugly knickknacks she kept on the kitchen counter .He hid them, and she put them back. Did you get rid of them when she died? "No, you don't have to understand a woman, all you have to do is love her", he said in bemused resignation. We may feel pressure to get rid of belongings quickly after a death. After all, some items may be of real value to different people in your circle. While you are having the sale, you may also note that you do not want to part with some things, so keep them. In the movie, the Descendants, we see a family faced with continuing shocks as they come to grips with the coma of a wife and mother. A yellow blanket is over her the last time the family sees her to say goodbye in the hospital. In a coda, the ten year old daughter is watching TV with the blanket. She is joined by her father and then her angry teen sister. They all share the blanket and the 2 bowls of different ice cream.
The Bible is replete with the keepsake s of spiritual images. Here we get a classic reversal. For Revelation, a dramatic new Exodus is being undertaken not in Egypt but in the heart of the Roman Empire. (See working Prescher here). Led by the Shepherd-Lamb Jesus, God calls Christians to “come out” of Rome (Revelation 18:4), in the same way that the Israelites came out of Egypt.People who belong to the lamb’s multitude are those who have come out of the great thlipsis (“tribulation”). The “tribulation” of Revelation’s audience was not state-sponsored persecution but rather the social, economic, and religious troubles facing the communities.Like a shepherd, God tenderly cares for the people -- a wonderful image for Good Shepherd Sunday. The verb “shelter” has the sense of God’s radiant presence as a canopy or tent over us (see Ezekiel 37:27). Isaiah 49:10, the call to return home from exile: God’s people will not hunger or thirst on their journey through the wilderness, nor will any scorching wind or sun touch them (Revelation 7:16,).Now the Lamb Jesus now becomes also the shepherd, tending the flock, leading people to springs of water, and wiping away all their tears (a quote from Isaiah 25:8). Led by their Shepherd-Lamb, God’s redeemed people will come through the tribulation into God’s new Promised Land. We enter the uncharted future with our memories. They may be reformulated and softened. In God’s stereoscopic view, our harsh memories can transform into agents of good. What looks like tribulation is turned into unanticipated joys.God hold our lives as keepsakes in the divine memory.
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