“Digging Up Bones”*
by the Reverend Bennett Wayne Dean Sr.(The RevChief)
Ps 103: 8-12; Col 3: 12-17
Many of you may be familiar with the song “Digging Up Bones” sung by Randy Travis. It was quite popular in the late eighties as I recall and gets continued exposure in old Matlock reruns. Just in case you don’t remember it - or possibly never heard it, let me play a few verses. (Play portion of CD) How many remember hearing it now?
What’s this man Randy Travis is singing about doing? We’ve just heard it. He’s sitting all alone “digging up bones.” Doesn’t sound like he’s having much fun does it? “Exhuming things that’s better left alone.” Sounds like a fun evening. “Resurrecting memories of a love that’s dead and gone.” How uplifting.
Well, haven’t we all done the same thing more than once - probably many, many times? Oh, we may not have done exactly the same thing - sitting alone at home “digging up bones”, but we’ve all been guilty of “digging up bones” - of “exhuming things that’s better left alone”. Be honest, now. We’ve all done it.
The man comes home after having an unusually hard day at work and the first thing he hears from his wife is “You went off and left your dirty cereal dish on the table this morning. I’m sick and tired of picking up after you!” And what does the man say? “Well when I got up I had to pour out a half full glass of curdled milk (yuk!) you left on the coffee table and didn’t take care of after you finished watching David Letterman last night. And there was one of those biting flies buzzing around it.” To which the lady responds, “Well, if I hadn’t been distracted by having go and turn off the porch light that you forgot, I wouldn’t have forgotten to take care of the milk.” And then he says, “Well two weeks ago I got home from working the graveyard shift and every light in the house was on - and you were still asleep! The children were late for school.” Before this lively discussion reached its unpleasant ending the entire problem had been blamed on a visit by Aunt Bessie in 1978 and the shaggy dog that the husband had when the couple first got married - depending upon which one of the participants you asked, of course. Sound familiar?
What has just happened here? This couple was “digging up bones.” They were “exhuming things that’s better left alone.” The fact that the children were late for school two weeks ago didn’t have anything to do with the dirty cereal bowl being left on the table. And the fact that Buster the dog shed hair all over the new carpet in the late sixties didn’t make Aunt Bessie stay an extra two weeks in ‘78.
No, the couple just started “digging up bones.” We all do it. We shouldn’t, but we do. Or, how about this. A child comes home from school with his report card and Mom says, “How could you have made a “C” in math. Both your sisters made “A’s” when they were in Miss Matthew’s class. If you don’t start working harder, you’ll make another “D” like you did in the second grade. I told your father then you shouldn’t be playing t-ball, but he wouldn’t listen.” “But Mom, that was 8 years ago” the child replies. To which Mom says, “It’s the same thing starting all over. You just are not taking any responsibility anymore. Monday, I asked you to stop at the store on your way home and pick up a loaf of bread and you forgot. Now this report card. When your father gets home, I think we better discuss taking you out of that band you’re in - if you can’t do any better than this.” What has Mom done? That’s right. Mom’s “digging up bones.”
Aren’t you glad that our Savior Christ Jesus doesn’t do that?
I’m reminded of a story I read about a young boy who had grown up in a rural setting not unlike what the area around our church might have been a hundred years ago. Most of the year this young boy had drifted carelessly along, not putting much effort in his school work. But in midwinter some kind words from his teacher roused him to take a new start and he became most distinct a different boy and begin making up for past faults in his work. At the final examination he passed with a high grade to the great joy and pride of his mother and father. At year end the parents were present for the graduation ceremony to the next grade. But the copy-books - some of us may remember copy-books, those books which included all our daily school work - these copy-books used through the year were all laid our on a table for he visitors to look at; and the boy remembered that his copy-book, well done in its latter pages, had been a dreary mass of blots and bad work before. He watched his mother as she began looking over those books and his heart was sick at the disappointment she was about to feel when she saw the poor work he had done in the past. But she seemed, to the boy’s great surprise, quite pleased with what she saw and called his father to look with her. Afterward the young boy rushed over to the table where his copy-books laid and, upon opening them, found that his teacher had thoughtfully and thoroughly torn out all those bad, blotted pages and made his copy-books begin where he had started to do better. To all who would forsake sin, God offers the same - a new chance and promises to blot out all old sin and make the record begin with a new start - a clean slate. 1
As we read in Psalm 103, “ He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” As the heavens are high above the earth - as far as the east is from the west. Friends, that’s a l-o-o-o-n-g way!
I remember a time many years ago, when I was a child, visiting my mother’s parents - my grandmother and granddaddy - up in Pickens County, Alabama when the conversation turned to going to visit the birthplace of Elvis Presley - Tupelo, Mississippi. Well, one of my uncles said, “Oh, it’s just up the road.” So, after being assured that Tupelo was “just up the road”, we all got in the car and started up the road. Hours later we got to Tupelo! I don’t recall whether we got to see Elvis’ birthplace or not, but my family and I learned one thing - “in Pickens County ‘just up the road’ is a l-o-o-o-n-g way”!
And so it is with God’s forgiveness bought for each of us by Jesus on the cross at Cavalry. Our sins are not only forgiven - they are forgotten! They are “as far as the east is from the west” or, if this passage had been written by a resident of Pickens County, our sins have been sent “just up the road”.
God doesn’t say, “Now you’re forgiven of all your sins and transgressions, but if you mess up again, I’m going to ‘dig up all your past sins and parade them by you’”. No God doesn’t “dig up bones”. Our sins are forgotten - God doesn’t “exhume” them. He leaves those past sins alone. He forgives and He forgets! Our sins are blotted out just like the bad pages in that young boy’s copy-books. It’s as if they never happened! That’s love. That’s God’s grace.
Now, of course, to be forgiven doesn’t mean we’ll never, ever sin again. When we’re born-again it does mean we really work at, at John Wesley said, “going on to perfection”, but most of us never make it in this world. But His word promises in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Even though it’s somewhat of a mystery, I believe most folks can understand how God can not only forgive, but can “blot out” and forget the sins of His children. But, now let’s talk about the hard portion of the scriptures we read this morning. At least for most of us this is the part we’d just as soon not read.
But as we just read in Colossians, “...as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.”
The word “forgive” here is from the Greek charizomai and is built on the same root as the word “grace”. It means to bestow favor unconditionally.
As Christ “forgave” you, so you also must do! That’s heavy! God wants us to forgive those who have wronged us the same way Christ has forgiven us - no matter how bad that wrong has been. But God, we cry out, how can I forgive him - you just don’t know what he has done to me! Yes, He does - and He still wants you to forgive that person “even as Christ forgave you.” Friends, I don’t know about you, but I sometime find that hard to do. But if we are God’s “elect” that is indeed what we must do. The Christian will always treat the offending party graciously - ALWAYS!
Listen to what the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, verses 21 and 22 say: 21 “Then Peter came to Him and said, Lord, how often shall I forgive him? Up to seven times? 22 Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”
Now Jesus in this passage is not literally telling Peter, now after you forgive your brother 490 times (70 x7) you can treat him anyway you want. No, that’s not what Jesus is saying to Peter or to us.
At the time Jewish teaching said a person should forgive a repentant offender four times. Peter, though more generous than the Jewish teaching, was still setting a limit beyond which he could not forgive - a point when he would start “digging up bones.” But Jesus will hear none of that - He says we must forgive “seventy times seven” - without limit!
Notice another curious thing. Although we are commanded in the Word of God to repent of our sins and ask forgiveness - neither Peter nor Jesus add the condition of repentance as had the Jewish teachers. Thus Jesus is asking us to forgive those who have offended us without limit - no matter what their attitude might be - no matter whether they have made restitution or not - no matter whether they have truly repented of their offenses or not - no matter whether they have told us they are truly sorry or not - no matter whether they have even told us they are sorry without meaning it - and yes, no matter whether they continue to offend us or not! That a tough thing to do, isn’t it!
How many times have we said - or if we haven’t actually said it we’ve thought it - “Well I can forgive him, but I sure can’t forget what he’s done.” But what do most of us do? That’s right! We start “digging up bones.” We start “exhuming things that’s better left alone.” And it the person who we feel has wronged us isn’t present to hear our “digging”, we, like the man in Randy’s Travis’ song, will sit alone at home or in some bar “digging up bones.”
“I can forgive, but I cannot forget” is only another way of saying, “I cannot forgive.” 3 Remember, a forgiving spirit is an essential characteristic for one who has been forgiven by Christ. 4
But listen further what the word of God says in Colossians 3:14: “But above all these things put on love ( some versions translate it charity), which is the bond of perfection.” We are commanded to put on love, like an outer garment - love - the basis and the cloak of all the graces and the bond that binds all the others together in a mature completeness. 2
This is not the kind of love Randy’s singing about which is a sensual, sexual love - but the “agape” love, the charity-type love of Christ. The love of perfection - the love of completeness. The type of love shown by Jesus when He cried out, “It is finished!”, bowed His head and gave up the ghost on the hill of Cavalry.
It’s the kind of love that can cause a mother to forgive the man who has been convicted of raping her daughter - it’s the kind of love that can bring a man to his knees in heartfelt prayer for a mass murderer whose victims include his entire family - it’s the kind of love we’re to show to ALL our fellow men and women ALL the time - regardless of what they have, or have not done to us, for us, with us or without us. It’s the kind of eternal love God has for us.
Aren’t we glad that God’s love for us last forever - that it’s not a love that’s “dead and gone”? That He’s not going to start “digging up bones” when we mess up and fall short of perfection? That He’s not going to start “exhuming things that’s better left alone”? And we should “also must do.“
1 Noble, the Rev. Franklin. “Blotted Pages”. Two Thousand Evangelistic Illustrations compiled by the Rev. E. Y. Mullins, D.D., LL.D., George H. Doran Company, New York, 1921. p.214. 2 Liberty Commentary On The New Testament. The Revs. Edward E. Hindson, Th. D., D. Min. & Woodrow Michael Kroll, Th. D., General Editors. Liberty Press, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1978. 3 Henry Ward Beecher. 4 The Wesley Bible. Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990.
*Originally preached at Mt. Carmel & Barlow United Methodist Churches; Millry, Alabama, June 22, 1997. Preached at Clear Springs United Methodist Church; Clear Springs, Alabama with additional material added, Sunday, October 18, 1998. Preached at Megargel United Methodist Church; Megargel, Alabama and Excel United Methodist Church; Excel, Alabama, Sunday, August 11, 2002.
Copyright 1997 by the Reverend Bennett Wayne Dean Sr.(The RevChief) Additional Material Added 1998. Edited 2002.
