God Got A Tattoo

Did you ever wonder why people get tattoos? Me neither. Until I was working on a sermon the other day and the floor beneath my chair opened up and tumbled me through an Alice-in-Wonderland-like rabbit hole into the curious world of body ink. Of course, there are lots of reasons why people pay to have painful, permanent marks placed on their bodies – excessive alcohol consumption being one of the most common. (I think I’ve probably missed the boat on this one, but I bet there is serious money to be made in tattoo removal. Thought the same thing about pet health insurance and pet cemeteries back in the late ‘80’s. Oh, well.) But one of the more sober motivations for turning the body into a canvas has as much in common with Moses’ successor, Joshua, as it does with Jack, Jim and Jose, (Daniels, Beam and Cuervo, respectively.)

People get tattoos to eternalize something they fear they might – or don’t want to ever – forget. Sometimes it’s a significant event. After 911, American flag tattoos took off. So did the words, “Never Forget,” and “FDNY.” Sometimes, it’s a person they want to remember – faces and names are ever popular. Or they memorialize a decision they made, a feeling they felt, or a moment they experienced. That’s why I think self-graffiti motivated by the desire to remember has something in common with Joshua.

When Israel crossed the Jordan on dry land (Joshua 4), God told Joshua to choose twelve men, one from each tribe, to hoist a stone from the middle of the river and arrange them on the other side. The make-shift monument was “to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

God knows we’re forgetful. That’s why He wanted Israel to pile up those stones. I think that’s also one of the reasons He gives us rituals like baptism and communion. They function like anchors mooring us to moments that must be remembered, decisions that dare not be forgotten. I know that on October 10, 1969, I was baptized. Bill Long was preaching, my dad led the singing and a man named Skinny Oliver helped me get ready to go into the water. “This is a day you’ll never forget,” Skinny said. I haven’t always lived up to the commitment I made that day, but Skinny was right; I have not forgotten that I made it.

Communion reminds me that my decision to be baptized – or even the baptism itself – isn’t what saved me. God’s grace made available to me through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus saves me. Saves you, too. I don’t know about you, but there are times when I forget it’s not about how good I am, but how good He is. And, since we’re being honest, there are days when I need to be reminded that how bad I’ve been is no match for how much grace He gives.

God never runs out of grace. He has this remarkable ability to forget our sins without forgetting us. How? He got a tattoo. “I will not forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:15, 16).