Forget it!
Passage: Isaiah 43:16-21
Date: April 6, 2025
Pastor: Pastor Horton
If I were to ask you to name the top ten miracles God performed in the Old Testament in order to save his people…what sort of miracles come to mind? I dropped the question into chat gpt just to see how AI might rank such a list. What were the first miracles that came to your mind? What were God’s great acts done to save in the Old Testament? Maybe you thought about the individuals who saw great deeds done for them from a God who knew them and loved them and spared them for his good purposes: David and Goliath, Daniel and the lion’s den, Jonah saved in the great fish, and the three men in the fiery furnace all made the list. Also, according to AI, there were acts done to save the people in the sense of sustaining them with manna in the desert. Also on the list was delivering an enemy into their hands such as the miracle of the walls of Jericho that came tumbling down. Topping the list was, and certainly as far as magnificent-miracles go, I found Noah and the life-saving ark during the flood. But right after that (#2) was a miracle recalled in our reading from the prophet Isaiah.
Listen again to the opening words: “This is what the Lord says, who makes a road through the sea and a path through mighty waters, who brings out the chariot and the horses, the army and the strong warrior. They will all lie down together. They will not get up. They are extinguished. Like a wick they go out.” Can you guess the second overall pick by AI for God’s greatest Old Testament saving miracle? It is the miracle of crossing the Red Sea. Do you remember that one? Do you remember God leading his people out of Egypt and their oppression only to find themselves with their backs to the ocean? Do you remember how the Angel of God moved the pillar of cloud behind them to defend them from the aggressive Egyptians? And how God had Moses raise his staff and hand as God sent wind to separate the water into walls and allow his people to be saved passing through on dry ground? Do you remember how those heroic and fierce warriors of Egypt along with pharaoh barreled into the passageway in hot pursuit? And how they didn’t dabble when it came to going on the attack but they all went in and none came out? How were told that “the Lord threw the Egyptians into the middle of the sea.” Every one of them extinguished like a wick in an instant.
The Israelites certainly remembered God’s saving act. They remembered the exodus by celebrating the passover each and every year. It was a big deal before the Babylonian captivity and a big deal to bring it back upon their return to the Promised Land. It served as a hallmark moment of God’s ability and willingness to save.
Do you remember? Because God says today in our reading, that along with all those other miracles, “forget it.” Wait what? Verse 18, “Do not remember the former things. Do not keep thinking about ancient things.” Why would Israel and why would we forget it? What is God talking about? We don’t forget his great and miraculous acts to save! But those events aren’t the best part of his grand plan of our salvation. We are being told to not dwell on the past, because God had something even better coming in the future. Something not even worth comparing to God’s gracious glories of the past. Something great has been planned. And that involves a promise fulfilled of a Savior in Christ the Lord.
“Forget it! Forget the past!” Those were also comforting words for the Israelites because not all of their history with God was good or glorious. Their diary of events in the Old Testament was often downright putrid. Like the former time when Israel stood in blatant rebellion against Moses and therefore also against God and many of them were swallowed alive when the earth opened up. Or the former time when they grew impatient with God’s plan and they grumbled and poisonous snakes were sent into the camp as punishment? Or the former time when God was up on Mt. Sinai yet the people’s hearts were down below honoring a golden calf? Those former things? Those former sins?! “Forget it” declares God. “Those former sins are now gone in the righteous blood of my Anointed One, the Christ.” Through these words God is declaring reconciliation and peace for his people.
“Forget it! Forget the past!” We need God to say those things to each of us as well, don’t we? It’s not all that hard and doesn’t take all that long to begin to think back to the former things that we have done that have been sinful. We know. We’re embarrassed by our sin. We think back to those moments when we have done absolutely destructive damage to someone’s reputation with our words when we couldn’t control the firestorm of hurt we ignited. There are those former thoughts that ran unchecked through our minds – thoughts not in line with God’s will. And there are those former actions that cause great regret – a regret that can consume us as we dare not look up to a holy God in heaven. Maybe you know all too well what I’m taking about. Maybe you have scars, figurative but maybe even literally of your former things – our former sins. The devil loves to have our past sin linger. “Forget it!” declares God. “Forget the past!”
This Lent, we traipse around in the desolate desert of our sin’s reality. Just like Israel had done as they traipsed around while wandering in the wilderness, or as they traipsed off into Babylonian captivity, and then traipsed back home some 70 years later. Their sin and God’s miracles were both before their eyes. Like them, left to ourselves, our sin would only result in us traipsing into death – death now and forever. Like them, we needed God to forgive, forget, make our loutlook new, and put the spring back into our spiritual step.
And has he ever done that! Our reading continues as God proclaims, “Watch, I am about to do a new thing. Now it will spring up. Don’t you know about it? Indeed I will make a road in the wilderness. In the wasteland I will make rivers. The wild animals, the jackals and ostriches, will honor me, because I am providing water in the wilderness, rivers in a parched wasteland, water for my chosen people to drink. This people that I formed for myself will declare my praise.”
Now, we have a new reality. For the Israelites, God would move monarchs to create a path back home for his people. Now God alone would act to again save and to deliver. Just as God alone has acted to save us from sin and death and hell. God sent his son, whom he loves, into this world. And even though, as we were reminded in today’s gospel, the world rejected him – still Christ Jesus bore all of our sins at his cross. God would act to give us a path home to heaven through Jesus, who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Where only desolation and death existed for us, a new change in Jesus is welcome! It is God who gives us a faith to believe him and God who formed for himself a people who know him and trust in him by that faith. In a spiritual landscape where desolation, despair, and death once reigned, now God has made the life-giving water burst forth and change our reality. Now we have a clear purpose and destination in service to our Lord. Now we have forgiveness and a new day of grace in Jesus. Now, through Christ, our parched souls are quenched and our lives have a newness, relief, and restoration. Paul rejoices in writing to the Philippians: “Forgetting the things that are behind and straining toward the things that are ahead, I press on toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Israel of old could forget their past because God had forgotten and forgiven their past. Even with all the great miracles, God had an even better future mapped out for them. One to bring them home. Deliverance was theirs. And so it is with you, dear believer! Deliverance is yours as well! God has done some pretty amazing miracles in your life, bringing you to faith and keeping you in the palm of his hand. Forget the former sins of your past. For they are forgotten in the cross of Christ. Appreciate who you are and what you are and where you are because of Jesus today – as you have new opportunity to live and serve him. And look forward to God’s great and gracious miracle of bringing us home to heaven. That is where our journey is headed in Jesus. And may we never forget that! Amen.
