{"id":1643,"date":"2006-12-11T02:10:42","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T02:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/god-remembers.html"},"modified":"2006-12-11T02:10:42","modified_gmt":"2006-12-11T02:10:42","slug":"god-remembers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/god-remembers.html","title":{"rendered":"God Remembers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Psalm 119:49 is the kind of hope we find in all those who long for redemption, who long for God to make God’s glory present, and who yearn for justice. In fact, people like Mary and Simeon and Anna — from Luke’s first two chps — are the kind for whom this prayer is so characteristic. Here it is:
\nRemember your word to your servant,
\nin which you have made me hope.
\nTwo points: First, it is likely (in my mind) that the hope here follows from disappointment after the previous section (vv. 41-48). The hopes of those verses — deliverance, answers, walking about at ease, and not being ashamed before the royals — evidently did not materialize.
\nThe psalmist’s response is not to say: if God doesn’t answer my (emphasis) prayers, God must not care; maybe even God doesn’t exist. No, this psalmist presses on further. Request, request not granted, expression of hope and confidence in God, request again.
\nSecond, the psalmist calls God to “remember” (zakar<\/em>). God can remember sins; God can remember promises. Thus, “remember” here does not mean recall or memory; instead, it means “to remember in such a way as to bring that promise to pass.” Zechariah’s name, you may know, means “YHWH remembered.” A good example of all of this is Hannah saying God remembers her by giving to her a baby (1 Sam 1:11, 19). Thus, Exodus 32:13: “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them…”
\nBoth Mary and Zechariah connect the conceptions of their children to God’s remembering of the covenant with Abraham.
\nTo summon God to remember is to call on God to glorify himself by establishing the promise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psalm 119:49 is the kind of hope we find in all those who long for redemption, who long for God to make God’s glory present, and who yearn for justice. In fact, people like Mary and Simeon and Anna — from Luke’s first two chps — are the kind for whom this prayer is so…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psalm-119"],"yoast_head":"\nGod Remembers - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/god-remembers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"God Remembers - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Psalm 119:49 is the kind of hope we find in all those who long for redemption, who long for God to make God’s glory present, and who yearn for justice. In fact, people like Mary and Simeon and Anna — from Luke’s first two chps — are the kind for whom this prayer is so…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/god-remembers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-12-11T02:10:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"God Remembers - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/god-remembers.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"God Remembers - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Psalm 119:49 is the kind of hope we find in all those who long for redemption, who long for God to make God’s glory present, and who yearn for justice. In fact, people like Mary and Simeon and Anna — from Luke’s first two chps — are the kind for whom this prayer is so…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/god-remembers.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2006-12-11T02:10:42+00:00","author":"xscot mcknight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/god-remembers.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/god-remembers.html","name":"God Remembers - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-12-11T02:10:42+00:00","dateModified":"2006-12-11T02:10:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/god-remembers.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/god-remembers.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/12\/god-remembers.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"God Remembers"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0","name":"xscot mcknight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","caption":"xscot mcknight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/xscot-mcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}