In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel stands before the Holocaust Museum and says, "Remember, Remember, Remember." Elsewhere Wiesel writes, "Salvation can be found only in memory" (the Kingdom of Memory). Perhaps we have some idea of what he means. If we forget, we are apt to repeat the mistakes of the past. Remembering enables us to learn from our experiences, especially the hard ones, so that we are able to grow as individuals.

On this Sunday, we remember those who gave their lives in the service of our country in times of war. Next Saturday we will remember as a nation. We remember our indebtedness to them. We remember and in remembering we give thanks to those whose sacrifice has made us who we are.  But Remembrance is a complex thing. By its very nature it is selective. We can't remember everything. Everyday we must forget a host of information in order to grasp other ideas.

And what do we do with the burden of horrible memories? In so many parts of the world, like the former Yugoslavia, or in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,  memory or memories serve as the main vehicle for keeping the cycle of violence and retribution going generation after generation. Yes, lessons are learned but certainly not the ones we are hoping to draw on the remembrance Sunday.

Sometimes, in terrible situations such as these that go on for generation after generation,  a refusal to dwell on the task of remembering is not so much an act of omission but rather an act of creation. It is an act of hope for something new in the midst of hatred and violence. In response to the challenge of evil, we try to fashion a different future through a combination of selective forgetfulness and hope.

Looking at our Biblical story, we see this taking place over and over again. Out of the memory of catastrophes like the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians and again by the Romans, Jews and Christians gave form to their fears concerning the end of the world. But they refused to remain in a state of fear for out of these catastrophes they also developed powerful images of hope. They searched for the face of God who would fashion something new in the face of hatred and violence

We find these hopes portrayed in the Book of Revelation in our reading from Chapter 21. The book itself is a particular type of biblical literature known as apocalyptic. We are all familiar with the term "apocalypse". But the way we use the word is very different from the Biblical tradition. It means unveiling or revealing. It has been twisted and  is used as a term for catastrophes of our own making. We speak in terms of the apocalypse of nuclear war  or the apocalypse of ecological disaster. Human made catastrophes whose possibility is reflected in issues like North Korea's nuclear program or global warming.
We don't understand the book of Revelation because we don't understand the martyrs. But Christians living under persecution, or resisting injustice and violence understand it very well because the book of Revelation is not a pessimistic scenario of global catastrophe. Scenarios that leave us paralysed with fear in the face of doom.

The book is a powerful witness to hope in the face of danger, to see that danger clearly and resist. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven… To have hope in the future then is to have meaning in the present.

Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist and like Wiesel also a Holocaust survivor, reflected on his four years as a prisoner in the death camps. He noticed something quite strange-the people who survived were not always the ones you'd expect. Many who were physically strong wasted away and died while others who were much more physically weak grew strong and survived. But why? What was it that enabled them to hang on through a living hell? Frankl came up with a theory.

The difference between those who survived and those who perished was the power of hope. Those who survived never gave up the belief that their lives have meaning, that despite everything going on around them they lived with the hope that one day it would end and they would live meaningful lives.
To have hope in the future is to have meaning in the present. And our faith in God is the foundation for that hope.  As Christians, it rests first in the act of remembering. The prophets of old constantly asked God to "remember". In sharing in the sacred meal, Jesus said to "do this in remembrance of me".
"O God our help in ages past."

But God also goes ahead of us into our future. This is the God of Israel's Exodus who moves ahead of his people in the cloud by day and the fire by night. This is the God of Christ's resurrection where death is not allowed to be the last word.
This God will "dwell" among us when all things are created anew as the Book of Revelation says.

God is "above us" and "within us". But God also goes ahead of us into the future. War, injustice and hatred are not the last word. It is only by moving beyond the cross that we can see the first daybreak colours of God's new world. Right now we experience a foretaste, an anticipation of God's coming kingdom, a longing in hope for something new.

We taste at the table of the Lord a vision of God's future where enough food is shared for all and none are left out. And in this present time, we wait and hasten, endure and hope, we pray and watch, we are both patient and curious. That makes the Christian life exciting and alive. The faith that another world is possible gives us hope for the future and power in the present.
THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.