Yesterday Begins with Yes
by J. Ellsworth Kalas
A key day in my lifetime of learning came near the end of the seventh grade when my home room teacher told me I’d been chosen to take Latin for the next two years. I didn’t know what this meant but honors were few to come by in those days and trophies non-existent, so with my parents’ permission, I said yes.
The first thing I learned was that I didn’t know any grammar. Our Latin teacher so advised us. Even though we were the select students from the English grammar classes, the Latin teacher explained that grammar had fallen on sad days and that she would have to deliver us from our ignorance.
The second thing I learned was a love for words and their origins. Almost daily our Latin teacher reminded us that a majority of English words had Latin origins; thus we would understand words much better if we knew where they originated. I’ve been living with that excitement ever since. Year after year I thank God for that long-ago Latin teacher who taught me to honor the genealogy of words.
My word just now, as we leave 2013 and enter 2014, has nothing to do with Latin. I’m not sure it has any meaning in its own right. Nevertheless, let me tell you about it.
It’s the word yesterday. I’ve learned that it has Old English roots, but nothing more. What struck me is something that any third-grader might have noticed (and probably has) but which impressed itself on me just a few weeks ago.
Just this, that yesterday begins with yes. Yesterdays tend to give us a lot of trouble, by way of their negative baggage. You and I have our regrets, and often with good reason. We’re sorry for deeds done, for words spoken, for thoughts we’ve entertained. Some of our regret is for the pain we’ve caused others, and we wish there were opportunity to make it right. Other regret is self-centered: we’re embarrassed by the memory of our own stupidity, and we pray that others will forget it even if we can’t. Sometimes we have yesterdays that leave us angry and resentful, or even revengeful toward others.
But in Christ, yesterday begins with yes! Salvation is not only a promise of heaven in the future, but of a re-ordering of the past. This begins with the cleansing of the past (“What shall wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”), but it doesn’t end there. In Christ all of the past becomes productive; it becomes yes. Salvation redeems our past. It makes something beautiful out of the conglomerate of our good and our bad, our achievements and our failures.
Know this, then, about 2013. In total, it is yes-teryear. Christ has redeemed 2013. With that assurance we enter 2014, sure of strength for each tomorrow.
What a powerful message!
Thank you Dr. Kalas! I needed that word today.
yesterday begins with yes is a message that is very relevant to every true child of God. i graduated from Asbury seminary 5 years a go but your sermons remain fresh in my mind especially when i read one such as this