Not Forgotten

November 25, 2017

Sometimes the story gets lost before it ever gets told. Dorothea Engelharte was my maternal great grandmother’s grandmother. She emigrated to the US from Bavaria in 1868. Exactly where in Bavaria she lived, how old she was when she came here, why she came, or what her life was like, I do not know. All I have is a family tree and her steamer trunk with her name and date painted in script on the front. I know she married and had children who had children, one of which was Josephine Wink, who married and later separated from Otto Hafner back when such things were just not done. Her daughter was my grandmother Henthorn. 

Like the Biblical genealogies, lists of names most of whose only memorable accomplishment was having children, my ancestor Dorothea’s story was buried with her grandchildren. Today, it is a forgotten tale, known only by this arch top steamer trunk that once held all her earthly possessions. Today it holds a tattered family Bible, a few documents, and some pictures painted years ago by my grandmother Bailey. 

My wife used to say that the only thing she feared about death was that she would be forgotten. It’s a legitimate fear; most of this world’s inhabitants are long-forgotten, their names and even their bones gone forever. Or maybe not.

Tomorrow, I’ll preach the last sermon in my series on the Apostle’s Creed, where we declare our belief in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. The resurrection of the body is not as some believe, an optional addendum to Christian faith. It is at the heart of it all. We believe in the resurrection not as a mere hope for immortality, but as God’s promise to us that we matter. Let the spiritualists have their disembodied spirits, their wistful hopefulness that there is something beyond, on the other side. We have the resurrection of the body! It’s not based on philosophical reasoning, but on the historical reality of Jesus’ own resurrection. It is bodily because that is the form life as we know it takes. The only way we know people is through living and breathing bodies which are part and parcel of our personalities. 

The resurrection is God’s ultimate affirmation of us, as well as his final victory over sin and death. My great-great-great-great grandmother Dorothea Engelharte is not forgotten by God. And neither will you or I be. Whatever we leave behind will someday gather its own dust, but our life is hidden with Christ in God. Forever. And for that, I am thankful tonight.