05042022 – John 22. 19-31
A whole lot of people THINK that they are “DEFINED” by their past…and who THEY WERE, or WHAT they REPRESENTED, at one time!
It has been said, that either we “IGNORE the past” or “we CHOOSE to live in it and dwell in our past.”
Some people never let go of it.
Which are you?
Are you DEFINED by your PAST?
Many people ARE you know!
They CANNOT and WILL NOT let it go.
The past HAUNTS THEM and hangs over them like an albatross around their necks…like some kind of an annoying burden, something that can come CRASHING DOWN at ANY moment of time.
For some, there is ONLY THE PAST! The past was the good old days. The past is full of FOND MEMORIES! The past holds THE KEY to everything.
And now, the present is just “meh!”
The past was where it is at…
I am not quite sure, how you NEGATE IT, IGNORE IT, as if, it NEVER happened! Never OCCURRED! Wasn’t IMPORTANT!
Oh, that’s just something (waves hand) I was going thru then, you know, back in the day…
I think there is also ANOTHER POSSIBILITY which is that of “making NICE with the past,” “accepting the past,” “making peace with it,” and then, moving on…when ready…when appropriate.
EMBRACING it, as it were, the good, the bad, the painful, the hurtful, whatever WAS…it was in YOUR PAST…
We ACTUALLY IGNORE the past when we don’t stop to EVALUATE and APPRECIATE “what we have experienced.”
When we FAIL to RECOGNIZE the way OUR DECISIONS have IMPACTED OUR LIVES and THE LIVES OF THOSE AROUND US, and when we FAIL to acknowledge the way OTHER PEOPLE’S DECISIONS have IMPACTED OUR LIVES, it is like we are saying those decisions (our own) and (others) DO NOT or did not MATTER. And of course, they do!
Still other people have chimed in – our past CANNOT possibly define WHO WE ARE, because WE ARE NOT our past, but WE ARE what we CHOOSE TO BE only at “this very moment of time.”
SOMEHOW, we have ACCEPTED AS FACT that our past defines who we are, but the TRUTH IS that our past CANNOT define us, but we are constantly RE-DEFINING (reinventing) OURSELVES through our BEHAVIORS and ACTIONS in our present. We are constantly changing.
I guess it all is really very individualistic, and you COPE in whatever “way” is MOST HELPFUL for YOU….and then you either deal with it, or you chose not to…
And of course, all this comes OUR way, vis-à-vis Peter and his conversation with Jesus.
I wonder what Peter thought when he got ashore and saw a charcoal fire sitting there. It was a kind of trigger, you know.
I wonder if he gazed into those flames and lost himself in his own past…and remembered or recalled another charcoal fire, the one by which he warmed himself and denied even knowing Jesus.
I wonder if in his mind, he heard the cock crow off in the distance of his own head?
I wonder if he was overwhelmed with guilt and regret. I wonder if it all came back to him in a rush. I wonder if he was afraid or scared to talk with his old friend? I wonder if he had a case of the “if only’s?”
The cool thing is that it ended up being a conversation about “love,” “freedom,” and “moving forward.”
“Do you love me?” Jesus asks Peter, not once but three times. One question for each of Peter’s denial. Three times Peter gives the same answer, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” And certainly, he did.
I think Jesus knew that Peter loved him, but Peter needed to know, that he loved Jesus. That he really, truly did.
His denial came out of fear and being terrified, that he too, would be captured on the spot.
That he too would be interrogated, charged, and killed.
Peter needed to understand that he was NOT BOUND to or IDENTIFIED by his past.
He was loved. He was forgiven. He was encouraged to move on…With each question and answer, Jesus drew Peter from his past, and freed him, TO BECOME himself, and to BECOME “more fully alive in the future.”
I tell you it was a beautiful thing!
If the past is holding you back, got you cornered or in a half-nelson, just know that there are “other possibilities for you!”
You ARE NOT your past. You are forgiven.
You ARE loved. You are ONE of a kind. You are appreciated for WHO and WHAT you are. You are NEEDED and NECESSARY.
Amen!