In eigth grade, circa 1988, I played on the school basketball team. While our school colors were gold and blue, our basketball uniforms were orange and white. I think we voted for those colors. many of us on the basketball team were Syracue Orangemen fans. Our basketball uniforms were SWEEET! WE had our regular basketball jerseys and shorts along with orange T-shirts that went underneath the jerseys.
Even though the season had ended in the spring of 1988, I continued to wear my orange T-shirt on occasion. On a Wednesday night at church, I remmeber sitting in the second row from the front, wearing my orange T-shirt. I remember the preacher extending an invitation to become a Christian by being baptized into Christ. I remember walking forward as we sung, "O why not tonight!" I professed my belief in Christ and m good friend Bennie baptized me. I will never forget that day!
It's funny how I remember that orange T-shirt. I even remember the hard underarms in the t-shirt from excess deoderant I used. Yet while that orange T-shirt is so vivid there were other things about that day that I remember but would much rather forget. Like the argument my mother and I had at home an hour before my baptism. Or like the constant bickering I experienced in my own mind regarding becomeing a Christian. I didn't know if I was really ready to live the life demanded of a follower of Jesus!
Oddly, what I don't remember was being overwhelmed with the reality of being buried with Jesus Christ. I was happy of course. I was excited of course, but the overwhelming reality of being in Christ would come much later. As a result, I just simply forget.
I've been reading through the Old Testament with our church and one of the prevailing narratives was the Israelites constant forgetting. They forgot what the Lord had done for them. They forgot how the ord saved them! They forgot what the Lord taught them! And before I get to critical of the Israelites, I would like to confess my own forgetfulness.
Dring this season of Lent, I am calling myself to a period of remembering! A period of remembering the overwhelming presence of Jesus in my life. My experience in the orange T-shirt constitutes but a small piece of this journey that I am on, but I will never forget it! My orange t-shirt moment is part of the narrative of God's saving power in my life! I will not forget.
Tonight's Menu: Smothered Meatballs, Amish Noodles and Corn
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