I just can't remember...

We spend the first half of our lives celebrating as we reach new milestones, learn more information, find ourselves able to do more things. We laugh with joy when a child says a new word. We throw a party when a young adult graduates from high school. We give a clap on the back and a "well done" when an adult secures a new job.

And we grow older.

As we grow older, we discover we can't do the things we used to do. We grieve as our sight worsens. We often feel useless when we must hire someone to do our laundry or our cleaning. We complain, "My mind must be going... I just can't remember things like I used to."

I am somewhere in the middle -- still able to reach milestones, learn more, do new things -- and yet also recognizing and grieving that there are some things that I will never do, some I may never do again. [I suspect that we never move beyond this 'middle space,' the liminal place between what I could do or think before and can't now, and what I can do and think in the future.]

We recognize that through Jesus, God has experienced the human life. Jesus really knows what it is to grow up, to be an infant and then a child saying first words and then a young adult setting out to do a job. Jesus knows what it feels like to age, and Jesus knows what it is like to suffer physically and to die. But Jesus didn't get to live to be 80 or 90 or 100. What, do you suppose, Jesus knows about that?

We might imagine that before coming to earth, Jesus (being one with God) knew what God knew, communing with God in an intimate way we can but imagine. And then, Jesus became bound by humanity: a human body, a human mind. Speaking about the last hours, when God's kin-dom will be made manifest on earth, Jesus told his disciples: "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Mark 13:32, NRSV)

I wonder, was Jesus experiencing one of those moments? One of those "...I know I know the answer to that question... and now I just can't remember" moments. One of those "My mind must be going, I can't remember anything like I used to" moments. I wonder if Jesus' mind pricked with an ancient knowledge that he just couldn't bring into his human mind in that very human moment.

There is a grief process associated with memory loss. Frustration at being unable to remember, perhaps anger at the way things are and are becoming, perhaps depression that we know we won't be able to return to a better memory, and perhaps finally acceptance. In my stage of life, I still hear "If it's important, it will come to me later" a lot. That's not always true. As we age, it becomes less true: there are many important things that we forget, can't remember, and may never remember until God's eternal kin-dom comes.

And so, perhaps this is one more way that Jesus comes to be with us. Perhaps this is one more way that Jesus understands us. Perhaps this is one more place that we can lean on Jesus. Perhaps Jesus, too, knew what it was like to forget, forget what is so very important -- vital, even -- and to learn to trust that it's enough that God knows, and will always know, and we can be blessed in that.