Writing History

Seeing our personal life story as salvation history

07/27/2018

Jeremiah 3:14-17 Return, rebellious children, says the LORD, for I am your Master; I will take you, one from a city, two from a clan, and bring you to Zion. I will appoint over you shepherds after my own heart, who will shepherd you wisely and prudently. When you multiply and become fruitful in the land, says the LORD, They will in those days no longer say, "The ark of the covenant of the LORD!" They will no longer think of it, or remember it, or miss it, or make another. At that time they will call Jerusalem the LORD's throne; there all nations will be gathered together to honor the name of the LORD at Jerusalem, and they will walk no longer in their hardhearted wickedness.

Winston Churchill famously said that “history is written by the victors.” He uttered those words to inspire the British people not to lose the war and thereby let someone else write their national history. And it worked! No one wants someone else to write their history, or to tell their story. But I believe today history is written by movie producers. For instance, how many people who saw the movie “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” now believe that the ancient Israelite Ark of the Covenant was indeed discovered during World War II and is now safely housed in a nondescript warehouse somewhere in Washington, D.C.? But is that what really happened to the Ark? Whose version of history, whose interpretation of the facts, do you believe?

But there is another version of history that gets my vote, namely, salvation history. And salvation history is found in its most pure form in the Sacred Scriptures. Those seventy-three books were not authored by victors or by movie producers but principally by God, who inspired the human authors to write what he wanted and nothing else. There we learn what really happened to the Ark of the Covenant, that is, in 2 Maccabees 2:4-5, we read: “Jeremiah went to the very mountain that Moses climbed (Mt. Nebo – not the one in Arkansas) to behold God’s inheritance (the Promised Land). When Jeremiah arrived there, he found a cave in which he put the tent, the ark and the altar of incense; then he sealed the entrance.” And I’m sorry but Indiana Jones has not found it; the ancient Ark remains hidden to this day. Someone is always redacting history to serve their own purposes. The Holy Spirit also redacts history, indeed he actually writes human history as it unfolds, to serve the purpose of our salvation. In a sense, that would be writing history starting from the end and working backward.

Jeremiah was not only one of the Old Testament’s great “major prophets,” he was also the author of several books. He wrote Jeremiah, 1st and 2nd Kings and Lamentations. He was deeply imbued with a sense of salvation history and God’s authorship of his own history as well as that of all humanity. At the beginning of the book of Jeremiah (today’s reading), he explains why he hid the Ark in the first place, writing: “They will in those days no longer say: ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord!’ They will no longer think of it, or remember it, or miss it or make another.” Why would the people not become “raiders of the lost ark” and seek to find it? Because God would make their hearts into the ark, where God’s love and God’s laws would be kept safe and never fall into enemy hands. In point of fact, the last time the Ark is mentioned in the Bible is Revelation 12, where St. John sees the Ark of the Covenant. When he looks a second time, he sees a woman, a woman clothed with the sun, and who is carrying the Son of God, the woman is Mary. Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant. We might say the Blessed Virgin Mary is the ark that Indiana Jones should have been searching for.

My friends, who would you like to write the history of your life? If your life were made into an action movie, who would you cast in the leading role? My movie would definitely star Dwayne Johnson, the Rock, because we look almost identical. But may I suggest to you that the only author who is completely competent to write your story is the Holy Spirit? Why? Because your history, like the history of ancient Israel, and the history of the British Empire, and my history, is not best written by the victors but by God, because the deepest truth about history is that it is always and everywhere salvation history. Until you touch that deep undercurrent of the river of time, you’re only skimming the surface. When you begin to contemplate your life as salvation history – the history of your salvation – you begin to see it starting from the end and working backward.

Before you pick up a pen to write your autobiography, try to see your life starting from the end and tracing your steps back to the beginning, like you do when figuring out the best path through a maze. Maybe Churchill was right after all: history is written by the victors, and the final victor will be Jesus Christ.

Praised be Jesus Christ!