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The other man said, "That sounds wonderful. I think I need to take it too. What is the name of that pill?"

The first man said, "Well, let's see…. the name of that pill was…. Hmmmm. Well, tell me, what is the name of that flower… with the thorns? It's red. You know, the one they give at Valentine's."

The other man replied, "You mean a rose?"

The first man said, "Yes, that's right!" Then, calling into the kitchen he said, "Rose, what is the name of that pill?"

There must be hundreds of jokes like that about old people, like me, losing their memory. The jokes are so funny because there is a lot of truth to them. I know that I have more trouble remembering names and numbers than I used to. So I was fascinated when I came across our text for today which says, "Do not remember the former things." Did you catch that when we read it?

Usually, the Bible tells us to remember certain things, but here the Scripture says to forget some other things. That was such an unusual message that I felt it was worth exploring further.

First, let's set this text in its context. Isaiah was writing to a people in exile. We can only try to imagine the difficulty of their life experience. They had known the greatness of Israel during the glory days of David and Solomon. Even the Queen of Sheba marveled at the success of Israel during her visit there. But now the nation has not only declined but has been conquered. Jerusalem has been devastated and the Temple destroyed. The people have been humiliated and taken into captivity.

Their memories seem to all be painful. In Psalm 137, one of them proclaims, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy." Here was a people haunted by the memories of their former greatness.

And they were haunted by the memories of their sin. The prophets had made clear to them that their exile was a direct result of turning their backs on the one true God. Now they had to admit that they deserved the punishment they were receiving.

Isaiah tries to convince them that God wants to do a new thing among them. God wants to restore them to their country. But the people can't believe the good news because their memories are so filled with bad news. For decades they have lived in captivity, away from their homeland, separated from their customs and rituals, away from the place that gave them their identity and calling. They have lived in the humiliation of being captive, and they have been haunted by the memory of their spiritual infidelities which they believe have brought them to this place. Like Thomas Wolfe, they may have concluded, "You can't go home again."

The prophet offers them a two-fold invitation, a two-fold vision: "Remember not the things of old - behold I am doing a new thing; do you not perceive it?"

Paul Tillich reminds us that growth always demands sacrifice; something must be left behind to accept the new. He writes, "If the new were part of the old, the prophet would not ask, 'Do you see it?,' for we already would. We cannot be born anew if the power of the old is not broken within us."

The power of the old must be broken. We must "remember not" if we are to perceive the new. The prophet knows that energy consumed in haunting memories will limit their ability to perceive their new future. This will be Israel's challenge. They must find a new identity. They must perceive a new thing.

The characters in Pat Conroy's book, The Prince of Tides, are haunted by memories that threaten the present and what they can perceive for the future. The irony is that many in the family do not want to talk about the past. The main character's mother says, "Why do you want to dwell on the past?" And yet it is obvious that the past's control is causing much pain and even insanity in one family member. They want to forget, but they do not know how to "remember not." They do not know how to lose the debilitating control of the past.

In the same way, Israel will need to "remember not" the things of old. It does not mean they will have no memory, but that somehow they must offer up that memory to God so that it loses its power to haunt, so that they do not see themselves defined by it.

There are many of us today who can identify with the people of Israel in this regard. Many of us have painful memories of failures and tragedies that haunt us every day. We too have difficulty finding the positive possibilities in life because we are still tied to the past like an anchor that keeps us from moving forward.

One of my favorite songs is one by Billy Joel called "River of Dreams." I still remember the first time I heard it because the lyrics haunted me. I kept listening trying to figure out just what the words meant. Listen to this verse:

"In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
From the mountains of faith
To a river so deep
I must be looking for something
Something sacred I lost
But the river is wide
And it's too hard to cross
And even though I know the river is wide
I walk down every evening and I stand on the shore
And try to cross to the opposite side
So I can finally find what I've been looking for."

Many of us have lost something sacred, and our dreams are filled with haunting images of a yearning almost too vague to describe. We too stand by the river and wish we could get to the opposite side to find what we've been looking for.

Isaiah tells us that sometimes we have to let go in order to take hold. We need to forget a few things, we need to change a few things, we need to become something new.

Perhaps the greatest challenge in life is to remember the right things and forget the other things. The Bible is big on remembering. We are told to "remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." The people of Israel were to institute the Passover so that they would remember that they had been slaves in Egypt, but God had delivered them. They were to remember the law and bind it on their forehead. They were to remember the covenant they had made with the one true God. There are many such things that we simply must remember.

But there are also things we must "remember not." In the last verse of our text God says, "I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." If God does not remember our sins, then we should forget them too.

After we have taken our sins, our most embarrassing moments, our failures and laid them at the foot of the cross, we need to let go of them. We need to remember them not.

Perhaps you are like me, in a war with your brain. My mind seems to gravitate to all the mistakes and all the embarrassing moments of my life and pass right over my successes. I have to work hard to remember a few good things I have done in life to overcome a mind that dwells on the negative. Folks like us need to learn to "remember not." The difficulty is knowing which things to remember and which things to forget.

My former pastor Don Harbuck was from Louisiana, and he loved telling a Cajun story about two guys discussing a thermos bottle. The first man explains, "Say, Boudeaux, did you see this new thing I have here?"

The other replies, "No, Robicheaux, what dat you have?"

"It's called a thermos, and it keeps hot things hot. You put hot coffee in and it stays hot."

"Nooo, you don't mean it."

"But that's not all, it also keeps cold things cold. You put in a cold Pepsi and it stays cold."

"Say, Robicheaux, dats the most amazing thing I ever saw. But I have just one question."

"What's your question, Boudeaux?"

"I just wants to know, 'How do it know when to which?'"

And that's our problem too. We need to know when to which. By following the Bible and the guidance of the Spirit, we can know when to remember and when to remember not.

It is vitally important that we get it right because only then can God do his new work among us. God says to us and to Israel, " Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"

Years later, Jesus came on the scene and proclaimed, "No one puts a piece of new cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into new wineskins, and so both are preserved." (Matthew 9:16-17)

The apostle Paul put it this way, "Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, all things have become new." (I Corinthians 5:17)

God wants to do something new in us, but first we have to let go of the old. We want God to change us a little, but God wants to transform our lives. In the Gospel of John, our conversion is called being "born again." The only way we can prepare for such a new birth is by dying to an old way of life.

Peter said, "Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord." (Acts 3:19)

What is it that you need to let go of in order to experience God's newness in your life? What memories are there in your mind that need to be forgotten so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord?