5 minute read
Ah, the good old days
by Marvin Bublitz
You may have heard someone say it. You may have said it yourself. I am sure I have said it at some point: “I miss the good old days.”
As we prepare for the next convention and review our life together since restructuring, some may say they long for the good old days. But just how accurate is that memory of the “good old days”?
A number of years ago I was visiting an elderly woman. She often bemoaned the current age and longed for the good old days, as she always called them. One day I asked her to tell me about the days of old. She spoke about life on the family farm, things like making their own butter and soap. She told me how hard the work was and how she would simply collapse in bed at the end of the day, exhausted. Then she would be sound asleep until she woke up and knew she should not have had that extra glass of water before bed, because now it meant a late-night trip to the little brown shack out back.
“What was that trip like in the winter?” I asked. “Oh,” she said, “cold and quick. And that Sears catalogue was not for reading if you know what I mean, Pastor.”
“What was transportation like?” I asked. “We either walked or took the carriage. I remember one winter,” she said, “when my sister had her baby. I went every other day by cutter to help her because she was so sick, and her husband had gone to find work in the next town. It was two hours each way. The air was so cold, seeing the horses’ breath you would think they were smoking.”
“Why didn’t you just stay with her instead of traveling back and forth?” She shot me a look and said, “Well, who would milk my cows if I did that? And that was hard to do when I got home with frozen hands from holding those reins for two hours.”
“Too bad,” I said, “that she did not have nurses or home care like you have to help her out.” “Are you kidding,” she shot back, “why, by the time the doctor could get there, she was either going to be dead or pregnant again.”
“You know,” I teased gently, “long cold rides in the carriage, cold late-night trips to the brown shack, limited health care... I can see why you long for the good old days.” She shot me a look and said, “Well, they was good the way I remember them, but not the way you remember.” Like many, she practiced selective memory.
As the children of Israel made their journey through the wilderness from Egypt to the promised land, they often practiced selective memory. “And the people complained in the hearing of the LORD about their misfortunes, and when the LORD heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the LORD burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. Then the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the LORD, and the fire died down. So the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the LORD burned among them. Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, ‘Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at’” (Numbers 11:1-6).
Ah, how one’s memory can reinvent the past. They remembered the melons in their belly but forgot the taskmaster’s whip on their back.
In truth, God was bestowing His blessings upon them all along. In the past when they were enslaved in Egypt, He strengthened and sustained them. When He brought the plagues on Egypt, He spared His people. When the Angel of Death came, He passed over their houses because of the lamb’s blood on the doorpost. He fed them in the wilderness with manna and quail. He gave them water to drink.
Glancing back, they could see His mighty hand sustaining them. Even in the midst of their disobedience, even in the midst of His wrath, even in the midst of His punishment, He showed his grace and mercy, so great is His love. His divine grace sustained them.
As we journey from slavery to sin and death unto the promised land of our Father’s Kingdom, His divine grace sustains us. His Word and Sacraments feed us.
Only two people could have said in truth that they longed for the good old days. Adam and Eve, after they sinned, were banned from the garden paradise and the tree of life. They could truly look back and say they longed for the good old days. But for the rest of us, the best days are ahead in the promised land. So, we set on eyes on those things above—the things unseen—and we trust our loving Father to sustain us on this wilderness journey.
