Life has a way of robbing us of dreams, of throwing hopes back in our face. The men going to Emmaus said, "We had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel" (
Luke 24:21). Great expectations -- cancelled by death.
Death Puts Us in the Past Tense.
1. We live with what might have been but isn't.
The best that could have been is in the past -- and it died. So we live with memories rather than hopes. We have more picture albums than goals. It may be death of a vision, death of a relationship, death of a friend, death of a future -- for the Emmaus men it was death of the potential Messiah. They said to the Jesus they didn't recognize, "We had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel" (
Luke 24:21). They took a risk by putting their hope in Him -- and now their dream was dead.
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When I was in school we had what was called the pluperfect tense. I think it may be called "past perfect" these days. It denotes action completed before a past time. Its effect continues to the present. To say "I was planning" (using the imperfect tense) keeps the door open for the present. To say "I had planned" (past perfect) closes the door on the present. The Emmaus disciples saw the door barred ("We had hoped..."). They were living with what could have been but wasn't. Their conversation centered around Bad Friday. Luke says they were "talking with each other about all these things that had happened" (
24:74).
When death brings us up short, we tend to rehearse the past more than make plans for the future. I was told when counseling someone considering suicide to listen for any indication of a future tense in their speech. A sign of forward thinking is cause for hope, because people who commit suicide have lost any sense of tomorrow. Today is all they have, and that isn't enough.
Our first trip to Green Hills Cemetery after losing a child at birth was a teary one. We were thinking more about the past than the future, about what might have been but wasn't. Death makes things look final. Death puts us in the past tense, and....
2. The past keeps us from seeing the present or the future.
Luke tells us that as these men talked "Jesus Himself drew near and walked along with them; they saw Him, but somehow did not recognize Him" (
24:15-16, TEV). Perhaps it was not unlike Mary in the garden who mistook Jesus for the gardener. Depression affects perception. We don't see life as others see it.
3. We live as losers.
An instructor said to a new parachute trainee, "When you jump, the rip cord will pull automatically, but if it doesn't, pull the auxiliary chute on your back. If that doesn't work -- well, there will be an ambulance waiting for you on the ground." So the trainee jumped, and nothing happened. He pulled the auxiliary cord and still nothing happened. He said, "Of all the luck. And I suppose the ambulance won't be there either!" His pessimism was warranted - ours often isn't.