God is Famous

Everyone has their fifteen minutes of fame. Or so they say. It may be more true today, in an era of social media, than it was decades ago when I was hearing the phrase as a child, but nonetheless, everyone has that moment when they are more known than others. Nearly everyone. 

What's strange in our world is that those fifteen minutes don't necessarily last long, even when they seem like they might. They really are just fifteen minutes in the grand scheme of things. Years ago, everyone was jumping on the "ice bucket challenge" trend...but dump a bucket of ice on your head on the internet today, and you're just weird. That was so yesterday, and yesterday is gone. 

It's true, though, even with our real celebrities. That actor you like from that one movie, someone else remembers him from another movie entirely. There are actors who were wildly popular a generation ago, but you mention their name today, and the young persons have no idea who you're talking about. That singer's hit song from two years ago...I haven't heard it, but have you heard the latest by...? 

So even celebrity doesn't last. Not in any meaningful way. 

Unless you're God. 

After the remnant have finished rebuilding the important sites in Jerusalem, Nehemiah offers praise to the Lord, where he recounts the Lord's wondrous deeds for His people - the same deeds we read about in the Bible and recount to this day. 

At one point, he declares: So you opened the sea, and Your people walked through the water on dry ground, and no one has forgotten the name of the One who did it to this day. 

That's Egypt. That's the Exodus. That's thousands of years before the exiles come home to Jerusalem. 

Remember, in many of God's prophecies, He changes how He is known by His people to the newest thing He's done for them. He goes from the God who created the world in six days and rested on the seventh to the God who led His people out of Egypt to the God who parted the Red Sea. He says He will be known as the God who brings His people back to their land from exile. 

But here are His people, back from exile, and remembering Him as the Lord who parted the sea and led His people out of Egypt. Not only are they remembering it, but they know that the whole world remembers it. None of these ancient peoples have forgotten it. 

Thousands of years after that, we haven't forgotten it, either. 

So if there is such thing as real celebrity, God's got it. God's got it in spades. Millions of persons over thousands of years have remembered Him for the very same things, the things He's written in His book to remind us of. His people are talking about it. The world knows about it. Even the unbelieving world knows the stories of God. 

That's saying something.