Do you ever find yourself living in the land of regret?
I find a reality creeping more and more into my world as I age. It is called “regret.” Things I wish I had done. It takes shape a bit more in lieu of the things that I no longer consider a wise and prudent activity for my body to be engaged in. So, I have pretty much ruled that out I will be able to tell my nieces and nephews I bungee jumped. And wished I had flown one of those ultra-light planes when I was a deacon. As a pastor, I find more than my share of interactions that I wish I could do over, words I wish I could take back, because there were better or other ways to say what I wanted to, without opening wounds or hurting people. On a scale of 1-10, how often do you live thinking about what you could have done, or should have done? How often do you visit the land of “IF ONLY?”
I got to thinking about that because of three words near the end of today’s gospel. We hear Jesus telling his disciples: “that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Why those words? Why “beginning from Jerusalem?” The answer seems simple. Jerusalem was their worst moment. It was the symbol of the place where they had utterly failed the one they swore they would never leave, even unto death. Because they had deserted and denied and betrayed and abandoned him, and because this was their last memory of their friend and savior, they were stuck in that land of ‘what if’ and ‘if only.’ They were full of regret and sorrow and guilt for what they hadn’t done, yet had pledged to do – to follow Jesus to the end.
And Jesus tells them the place where it ended so badly is exactly the place where he needs to begin it again.” Because the disciples will know it is not their gifts, their skills, their talents that accomplishes the mission, but God’s power. Beginning from Jerusalem. That is where it begins. But not the Jerusalem of their regret, but the Jerusalem of his power. So, how does he do that? How does he get the disciples out of the land of regret?
Luke records: “he opened their mind to the understanding of scriptures.” In doing so, he invites them to understand that all that had happened, even their denial and abandonment, had been a part of the plan of God and a part of what was redeemed and brought to life. Isn’t the beginning of the way out of the land of regret to put your failure into a larger context? To learn to trust that God, in Jesus, has forgiven even their worst behavior. That is what the cross says: There is no human choice that cannot be redeemed.
The other part of getting out of the land of regret, (presuming you have apologized and made the amends the situation asked for), the other part of leaving the land of ‘if only’ is simply to repent and trust in the forgiveness that is there. Beginning from Jerusalem! Beginning from the places of your worst failure. That is where Jesus meets you.
And if you doubt that message, then please notice this: the resurrected Jesus spends no time worrying about the past.* He never chides or chastises the apostles for their abandonment and denial. It does not matter to him. Instead he greets them with “Peace”. Instead he shows them that he is alive with a new kind of life. Instead, he tells them that what matters is that they begin to live the NEW LIFE, the resurrected life. So, if you find yourself spending a lot of time in the land of regret, the land of “coulda’ woulda’ shoulda”, STOP IT! The resurrected Jesus spends absolutely no time there. Instead, he sends his disciples FROM that place, from Jerusalem, to be witnesses of his forgiving, saving love.
SO, this week, in your prayer, I invite you to spend a few brief moments calling to mind one of the regrets, one of the ‘IF ONLY’s’ of your life, one of the places where you go back to again and again and again. But only for a moment. And then, invite Jesus to stand before you, and to take that away from you. Place that failure, that ‘stuck-ness” in the palms of your hands, and invite him, in a resurrection moment, to take that from you. And then receive into those same hands the grace he chooses to give you to go from the Jerusalem’s of your own story and announce the good news.
“You are witnesses to all this.” Witnesses to a grace that saves you, to a mercy that redeems you, to a love that sets you free. That is the only land you ever need to dwell in.