Making Peace With Our Past

In Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, Miss Havisham is still wearing her wedding dress decades after her wedding day. The table is still set for the feast. Cobwebs cover everything. And every clock in the house is stopped at twenty minutes to nine, the exact moment she read the letter saying the man she was going to marry had abandoned her.

The years kept passing, but Miss Havisham never moved beyond 8:40. After a decade of pastoring this church, I can tell you we have a lot of clocks stuck at 8:40 in this room. Still carrying things from the past that cause pain in the present. Still wishing you could redo or undo a conversation, a decision, a relationship. Still hoping that burying the past is the same thing as making peace with it.

But you cannot undo or redo your past. The world keeps spinning and the clock keeps ticking. So how do we make peace with a past we cannot change? Paul can help us understand why our clocks get stuck and how the gospel gets them moving again.

One reason we struggle to make peace with our past is that we carry the guilt of what we have done. To be in this room, in some sense, is to admit that you are guilty. We have fallen short of the glory of God. Some relationships are forever severed because of wrongdoing. Even as forgiven believers, we remember what we have done and who we have hurt, and the enemy is more than happy to keep bringing it back up.

But the enemy is not the only one who reminds us of our past. Paul does too, and he is severe about it. He does not say, "You were once in darkness." He says, "You were once darkness." We tend to equate sin with activity. Paul grounds it deeper, in identity. It is not that we are bad. Ephesians says we are dead. It is not that we are in darkness. We are darkness.

If humanity had merely stumbled into darkness, we would not need good news, just good advice. Twelve steps to get your life back together. The Bible tells us it is much, much worse than that, and that is exactly what makes the gospel so profound.

"But now you are light in the Lord." Our identity changes from darkness to light, from dead to living. The Way of Jesus is not putting you in a new location. It is putting in you a new life. It is not changing your surroundings. It is changing your soul. And that new identity becomes the very reason Paul calls us to change our behavior: "Walk as children of light."

I have found this helpful in parenting. I used to discipline our kids mainly by pointing out what they did wrong. Now I bring identity into it: "VanCamps don't treat people like that. That's not who we are." I am not ignoring what they did. I am reminding them that what they did is inconsistent with who they are. That is exactly what Paul is doing. You were darkness. Now you are light. So live like who you are.

A professor of mine once opened class by saying, "I am not a sinner." The room was about to revolt. Then he finished: "I am a saint who sins." He was not saying he did not sin. He was saying his sin was no longer his identity.

Look at the language Paul uses next. Things done in secret. Things exposed and brought into the light. And then verse 14, which many believe was a hymn the early church sang at baptisms: "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

That phrase "shine on you" is a hyperlink back to the Aaronic blessing in Numbers: "May His face shine upon you and be gracious to you." Research shows that children gain their confidence and security when their parents consistently look at them with warm, tender love. Like a child who lights up at the face of his mother, we are designed to be at peace when Christ shines His face on us.

But most of us assume Christ will shame us. That is a lie from the pit of hell. Like a good parent, Christ delights in shining His face on you, even when you bring Him the things you would prefer to hide. Guilt hides, but the light of Christ heals. So we bring it into the light, and over time, we experience healing.

Not every clock gets stuck because of something we have done. Another reason we struggle to make peace with our past is that we carry the grief of what we have lost.

In The Power of Regret, Daniel Pink gathered data from people all over the world to find out what chains us to our past. When you are younger, your regrets are mostly about the wrongs you have done. But as you move into middle age and beyond, you still wrestle with guilt, but more and more it becomes a wrestle with grief. About all the things that did not happen.

The past hovers over you not just from what you have done, but from what you have lost. The marriage that ended. The person who died. The child who walked away. The opportunity that disappeared.

Paul continues: "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of the time." When you are grieving, that can almost sound cruel. Some of you do not need anybody to tell you that time is precious. You are very familiar with days, months, and years that feel wasted.

But look at the word Paul chooses. There are different Greek words for time. Chronos is time in its duration, the passing of time. Paul uses kairos: an appointed season, an opportunity, a moment that is available to you right now.

You cannot change the chronos behind you. But by the grace of God, you can still steward the kairos in front of you. Maybe this is how we walk as the wise.

Some of us are chained to the past asking, "How can I be forgiven for the life I've lived?" Others are chained to the past asking, "How do I release the life I never got to live?"

Ronald Rolheiser speaks directly to this ache: "The foremost spiritual task of the second half of life is to forgive: others, ourselves, life, God. We all arrive at mid-life wounded and not having had exactly the life of which we dreamed. There's a disappointment and anger inside every one of us and unless we find it in ourselves to forgive, we will die bitter, unready for the heavenly banquet."

Forgiving God can sound blasphemous. Rolheiser is not suggesting God has sinned against us. He is describing the surrender of our resentment toward God for the life He allowed versus the life we imagined. Most of us have a theology for the deeds we have done. We have little to no answers for the dreams we have lost.

We do not just give God what we have done. We give God what we have lost. We thank God for the good, we entrust to God what is bad, and we embrace the words of Job: the Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

If we do not process this grief and lay it at the Lord's feet, we will find ways to numb the pain. Notice the contrast Paul draws next: do not get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. We can take matters into our own hands through numbing, distracting, and reckless living. Or we can give it into the hands of God and be filled by His Spirit.

And notice what happens when we are filled by the Spirit. We sing. We worship. We give thanks to Jesus. But how do you become a person who can sing and give thanks when there is so much in your past you wish you could change? How do you give thanks when you remember what you have done? How do you sing when you remember what you have lost?

It is hard to make peace with our past. Guilt is a debt that needs a pardon. Grief is a loss that needs a promise. We sing and celebrate because the gospel of Jesus gives us both.

You can make peace with your past because the cross covers what you have done and the resurrection recovers what you have lost. The cross is our pardon. We are forgiven in Christ Jesus. The resurrection is our promise. Our future is secured in Christ Jesus.

To borrow a line from The Lord of the Rings, everything sad is going to come untrue. In the resurrection every tear will be wiped away, death will be no more, and Christ will make all things new. The cross says your sin does not get the final word. The resurrection says your loss does not get the final word. Jesus does.

To everyone whose clock is stuck at 8:40: we cannot change what happened. But because of Jesus, we do not have to live the rest of our lives there.