“For he remembered his holy promise.”

(Psalm 105:42)

Once at the close of a worship service a woman said to me: “Every time you baptize a baby you do something that troubles me.”  “What’s that?” I asked, never dreaming that anybody could be troubled by a baby’s baptism.  “You always say as you take the baby in your arms: ‘We, as a congregation of Christian people, promise to pray for this child.’ Well, I don’t pray for it, at least not for all the children that are baptized.  I suppose you do.  But it always troubles me when you say, “We promise!”

When she put it that way, I could understand what troubled her.  No one likes to be taken for granted, especially about promises.  Much discontent in our national life is traceable to broken promises and the general public’s assumption that some sacred promises had been made which were never seriously or honestly given.

Often times there is misunderstanding over what has been promised – if anything.  Rare is the family in which disappointed children have not cried out reproachfully to parents when an expected treat was denied: “But you promised!”  And parents have tried to placate the children and justify their actions by saying: “No, we did not promise.  We said we would see about it when the time came round.”

But there is one thing all can agree upon, young and old, parents and children, Republicans and Democrats, and it is this:  Promises, when made, should be kept.  Failure to keep promises is always blameworthy.  On this principle there is universal agreement.

Indeed, one good definition of our humanity is that people are promise making and promise keeping creatures.  Dogs and cats, mosquitoes and rhinocerii do not make promises nor show signs of guilt or outrage over broken promises.

One reason that Robert Frost’s lovely poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, holds such universal appeal is that it enshrines this thought.  The beauty of the falling snow at dusk in a quiet wood beguiles the poet to stop his horse and wait awhile – “To watch the woods fill up with snow.”  But soon he rouses himself to drive on with these relentless words:

                        The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

                        But I have promises to keep,

                        And miles to go before I sleep,

                        And miles to go before I sleep.

This is what keeps tired people still going, and defeated people still trying, and tempted people straight and loyal – this teasing, impelling thought – “I have promises to keep.”

Yes, human beings are creatures capable of making and keeping promises.  We live upward in the higher reaches of our capabilities when we make noble, unselfish, dedicated promises to our family, our country and our God, and keep them.  We live downward toward the animal instincts and appetites when we refuse to take obligations and to make promises, only living to indulge our selfish desires.

Arnold Toynbee, after surveying the vast sweep of the recorded history of all the civilizations and cultures of the whole world, asserted that the Roman soldier in the first century had a zest for living unrivalled by any other in the ancient world, until the Christian martyrs appeared on the stage of human history.  And Toynbee attributed this superlative exhilaration in the quality of life in both the Roman legionnaire and the Christian martyr to the fact that each had bound himself or herself by stern, serious promises to live and die for purposes that transcended personal comfort and welfare.  The Roman soldier on the first day of every new year promised anew his vow to defend the emperor and the empire with his life, and the Christian martyr had given his pledged word to live and die in faithfulness to his divine Lord and Leader, Jesus Christ.

Paul Elman observed that there was no mystery about the tragedy of the talented British poet and adventurer, Lord Byron, who in the flush of manly vigor was eaten up with apathy and bone boredom.  “For instead of giving himself in promise to an ethical ideal, and living upward toward that, he turned life into an endless play of fancy and travel, creating and destroying, loving and deceiving, each without purpose.  Weary in the few short years of fornication and dilettantism, he discovered that he had gone through all the pleasure the world affords and found them banal.”

This is Byron in Don Juan, you will remember: “But now at thirty years my hair is gray.  My heart is not much greener, and in short, I’ve squandered my whole summer, while ‘twas May.  My days are in the seer and yellow leaf.  The flowers and fruits of love are gone.  The worm, the canker and the grief are mine alone.”

It is not hard to discover why men and women – promise making and promise keeping creatures as they are — are at their best when binding themselves to the highest promises and at their worst when shirking responsibilities and breaking promises.  The scriptural revelation of God is of a promise making and keeping God, who has made human being in His own image and entered into a covenant relationship with them.  When we are living faithfully and honorably in this “covenant-promise relationship” with our God for which we were created, we feel the exhilarating satisfaction of the fulfillment of our highest purpose, but when we basely deny this highest human potentiality, we are plagued with guilt and shame and frustration.

But to go farther still, the nature of all human society is such that it is held together by this filmy, unsubstantial stuff called promises.  Promises are the stuff out of which the noblest institutions and most glorious cultures have grown.  The structures of all human life are more securely cemented when men and women are bound to their duties and obligations by solemn promises.

So, the presidents and vice-presidents of our nation and the judges of our courts, and the men and women in our armed forces, are all sworn in, and the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag is repeatedly said at public gatherings, in order that the commonwealth may be safeguarded with the stoutest stuff the mind of man has yet discovered – the promises of sacred honor by men and women of integrity.

In the church our wedding ceremony consists chiefly of the promises a bride and groom make to each other, to God, and to the Christian community that they will, “from this day forward, cleave only to each other, in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, so long as they both shall live.”

In the sacrament of Baptism parents and the congregation promise to pray for the child, to teach the Christian Gospel and to set for the child a godly example in living.  So also in receiving people into the membership of the church, in ordaining Elders, Deacons, Ministers and missionaries the same course is invariably followed:  all are required to bind themselves by promises to God in Christ:  “Do you promise to give your whole heart to the service of Christ and His Kingdom throughout the world and to be Christ’s faithful follower to your life’s end? Do you so promise?”

Armed with nothing more than the collected promises of men and women the church has flung her ministries round the world, and the gates of hell have not destroyed her yet.  Promises are the stuff by which the best institutions in human society are held together.

And finally, what is our worship for – the human side of it at least — but to remind us that we have promises to keep?  And, to find that strength that is from beyond us to keep them.

Robert Frost, in the snowy wood at dusk, was stopped and hushed by the beauty and mystery of the moment and place – but soon the revelry of his meditation was pierced by the stabbing thought of his sacred responsibilities and promises:  Hear him:

            “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

              But I have promises to keep,

              And miles to go before I sleep.

              And miles to go before I sleep.

Yes, the heart of his worship was remembrance of promises to keep.

Is not this the meaning of Peter’s confrontation on the lakeside by the Risen Christ?  Peter was just that man who had broken his promises to his Lord.  On that evening of the Last Supper in the Upper Room, Jesus had said to all the disciples, “One of you is going to betray me.”  There had been a clamor: “Is it I, Lord?  Is it I?” “One of you shall,” said Jesus, “but all of you will be offended and desert me.”  Then Peter made his boastful promise: “Though all the world should desert you, yet would I remain faithful.”  But Jesus had said, “Oh, Peter, this night, before the rooster crows to herald the dawn of a new day, you will deny me three times.”  And so Peter did – with oaths to a serving girl in the High Priest’s house, while his Lord was going through the mockery of a trial.  Peter denied that he had ever known Jesus.  He broke all his promises.

So, when the Risen Christ confronts Peter again after the crucifixion and after the resurrection – with consummate delicacy Jesus introduces the subject of promises – Peter’s word, his promised word of personal loyalty, was the point at issue.  A personal relationship cannot be kept intact and real unless promises are kept.  So Jesus goes to the heart of this problem of broken and kept promises by asking Peter the crucial question: “Simon, do you love me?” and he repeated it thrice over.

So the Risen Christ, in our acts of worship, comes, again and again, to confront us after our denials and betrayals of Him, after our repeated lapses of loyalty and unfulfilled vows, to remind us that we have promises to keep, to show us the reason for our past failures and the place where we may start anew.

There is an old tradition that “Peter escaped from his Roman prison on the night before his martyrdom and was fleeing along the Appian Way when he met a familiar figure bearing a cross.  ‘Domine, Quo Vadis?’ – ‘Lord, whither goest thou?’  ‘I am going to Rome to be crucified afresh.’  Peter turned and was found in his prison cell when the guards came for him in the morning.  History or legend? We do not know . . . but the story shows that the early church thought of Peter as still showing to the end some of the weakness of Simon, son of Jonas, but that the love of his Lord lead him captive at last.”  (Readings in the Fourth Gospel by William Temple)

How like Peter we all are in our weakness and vacillation – but also like him are we in our point of availability for glory, response to the love of our Lord.  If only we will allow His love to take us captive, there is hope of our keeping our promises.

Oh, fellow Christians, beloved of God, all of us creatures for whom Christ died:

            “The woods (of this world) are lovely,

                        dark and deep,

              But we have promises to keep,

              And miles to go before we sleep,

              And miles to go before we sleep.

PASTORAL PRAYER

Gracious God, as we present ourselves unto Thee in this hour of worship, grant us the grace to come without posture or pretense.  Our most secret thoughts are already known to Thee.  Though we may fool ourselves, we can hide nothing from Thee.  Thou knowest us for the inconstant, selfish, pleasure loving creatures that we are.

Yet by Thy grace we have known Jesus Christ as our Savior.  By His redeeming life and death we have tasted some of the fruits of Thy everlasting kingdom.  We come now, at the beginning of a new week Thou art giving us, to renew our vows, to repledge our love, to offer ourselves again as the instruments of Thy Spirit.

Heavy upon our hearts today, O Lord, is the suffering, grief and despair of the men and women and children given us to love in our homes and this congregation.  We pray for them and for ourselves that our sympathy may find expression in concrete acts of loving rescue.

Receive us Lord, such as we are, and use us.  Grant to us and our loved ones security and safety and success, we pray, in all our ventures.  But in all experiences, Lord, whether fortunate or unfortunate, as we judge them, may we be faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ, held in His love and ever about His business, to the honor and glory of His Holy Name. Amen.

CALL TO WORSHIP

“Hear, now, what the Lord saith: ‘My word shall go forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void.’  Thy word, O Lord, is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.”

INVOCATION

“O Thou who are the Light of the minds that know Thee, the Life of the souls that love Thee, and the Strength of the thoughts that seek Thee:  help us so to know Thee, that we may truly love Thee, and so to love Thee that we may fully serve Thee, whose service is perfect freedom, through Jesus Christ our Lord who taught us to pray saying Our Father…

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

“Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who of His great mercy hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them that with hearty repentance and true faith turn to Him, have mercy upon you; pardon and deliver you from all your sins; confirm and strengthen you in all goodness; and bring you to everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen”

PRAYER OF DEDICATION

“O Lord, who hast made this place Thy house, where we have remembered that we are Thy children and brothers and sisters of one another, mercifully receive these our thank-offerings which we dedicate to Thy service.  When we leave this holy place, let Thy presence go with us, so that the world may become our Father’s house and our daily work our Father’s business, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”