Awake, O Sleeper, Ephesians 5: 14-15

Dan Doyle

Every morning that we arise is a gift. It offers us a new opportunity to become the person that God wants us to be. It is a new start. But sometimes we may forget that, being caught up in yesterday’s worries and failings. We may have failed, fallen in some way from the narrow path with a little or a serious lie; we may have spoken an injurious word in anger, or made a judgment about someone in some matter of great or worse, some insignificant importance, without recognizing our own faults. But this passage warns us against carrying the burden of those memories into the new day. The prophet Samuel tells us: “The One who rules over men in justice is like the morning light at sunrise on a cloudless morning, making the greensward sparkle after rain” (2 Samuel 23:3-4).

This understanding of God, his love, and his mercy is very important. In essence, it teaches us that God’s capacity for forgiveness, for the cleansing of our souls, is infinite and generous. It never grows old. It is always new. In other words, we are being challenged here to learn the wisdom of not carrying yesterday’s errors into this new day. The ancient Christian writers warned against letting yesterday’s worries and grievances poison this new day. They had a very revealing and descriptive term for it. They called them “morning demons”. Rather, we are to lift up our errors to the Lord, to repent of them, and to give them over to God’s love and mercy. Then, let them go.

Isaiah puts it this way: “O Lord, have pity on us, for we wait. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in times of trouble” (Is. 33:2)! I think the understanding here is that God works in the present, for that is where reality resides. The past is gone. It is real only in that it can be learned from in the present. We cannot change what has been done. Its value for us lies in the lessons that we glean from it in the present. The future is not real yet. When we let ourselves get caught up in worries about the past or the future, we put ourselves in danger of forfeiting the present moment, the only moment when we can really do something to change anything. Without realizing it, when we allow ourselves to be trapped in worries about our past failures, we risk missing the opportunity to let go, to learn, and to grow in the present.

Paul tells us in Ephesians, “Everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.’ Watch carefully then how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise” (Eph. 5:14-15). To be ‘awake’ and to ‘see the light’ can only happen in the now-present moment. When my conscience ‘awakens’ me to my guilt, I can choose to repent of my past errors with a humbled and sincere heart, and turn again to God for forgiveness and his help…or not. It is in this choice, this decision, made in this present moment, that will make me either a fool or wise.

In the Book of Lamentations, we see this: “The favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies are not spent: They are renewed each morning, so great is his faithfulness” (Lam. 3:22-23). God’s mercy is greater than any of our sins. It has no limits and is available to us in each moment that we open the eyes of our hearts and the eyes of our minds up to it. To cling to our guilt over past sins, and to carry the burden of that unresolved guilt into this new day, can be, without our knowing it, a denial of God’s infinite love and mercy. This has seriously negative implications for both our psychological and our spiritual well-being.

God and his infinite love and mercy are present and real for us right now, in this moment. Turn to it now with a humble and contrite heart. When God forgives us, He does not just look past our wrongdoings; He actively chooses to erase the record of them. This is not a matter of voluntary ‘amnesia’ on God’s part, but a divine choice not to act against us according to our sin. He does not experience what we would call ‘memory loss,’ rather, He deliberately chooses never to hold our sins against us or to bring them up again…ever.

We see this in Psalm 103:12: As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us.” Indeed, Psalm 103 is a long reflection on the infinite goodness, love, and mercy of God. Whenever we find ourselves getting caught up in worries from the past, it might be helpful to turn to Psalm 103 to regain our perspective.