“A Matter
of Time”
Ecclesiastes
3:1-8
Isaiah
9:2-7
Friday
afternoon, as I was driving in the van with Jill, I once again felt the impact
time has on my life. Jill was rehearsing
the schedule for the next two weeks. “We
have to be here at this time, there at this time…oh, and on this day we have
this and this and this and this.” The
list of places and times were growing at such an exponential rate that it began
to exceed my memory capacity, and this does not even include the things that
are already planned on my calendar.
Every year at this time, I begin feeling the crunch of time. Well, maybe it is not so much the crunch of
time as it is the tension between the two competing times that I find myself
wrestling with. On the one hand there is
the time that is about seconds, minutes, hours, calendars
- chronos time.
On the other hand, there is the time that is kairos
time, or in other words, God’s time.
For me, this tension between
living in chronos time and kairos
time is always heightened during the season of Advent, because this time of
year I think so clearly demonstrates the contrast between the two competing
times. At the same time we are planning
all the holiday events and dinners and who’s house we will be at and when, and
all the children’s activities, we are also supposed to do to be preparing
ourselves for the coming of the Lord by living in a new life that does not
revolve around the ticking of the clock, but the relationship we have with the
God of all time and place, the God of past, present and future, the God who is
not governed by the ticking of the clock, but the transcendent God in Jesus
Christ. Advent reminds us that we are to
live in God’s time, but we know that God’s time and our time are not always
using the same timepieces.
And there in lies the rub. Time continues to tick away. With every tick of the clock, the boundary
between the past and the future continues to move forward. We think we have a handle on it. We keep it on our watches and clocks, our
calendars, and palm pilots, but in reality too often it is keeping us. Maybe that is just what we need to be doing
during Advent as we move toward Christmas.
Maybe that is Advent’s purpose for us, to get us to stop and pause and
reflect upon the time in which we live, so that we might see this time of
Advent as something greater than just a season, but as a witness of God’s
promise of what is to come at the end of time itself. Our two texts for this morning from the Old
Testament present us with a unique glimpse of the contrast between living in chornos time and kairos
time.
Our first OT
text from Ecclesiastes is perhaps one of the most familiar passages
in the Bible, but it is also perhaps the least understood. For many people this passage is a beautiful,
poetic expression of the events of life we experience, written from the pen of
a faithful, optimistic preacher, who looks upon these events as the workings of
a sovereign God. It is true that this is
a beautiful poem. When you read this
passage, it is easy to look upon it with admiration and appreciation for its
skillful poetry. Each poetic verse is
arranged with symmetry and balance with one half of the verse stating the polar
opposite of the other half. Each verse describing, on one hand, the favorable events of life
and well being, and on the other hand, the unfavorable events of death and
loss. And it is true that this
preacher is faithful. He believes in the
sovereignty of God, but it is not true that he is optimistic in fact the
opposite is true.
You see, the preacher lives in chronos time. He
views life as being filled with events of time, events and situations that come
and go with the movement of the days, events and situations that people have no
control over. For him, each favorable and
unfavorable event has been predetermined beforehand by the all-powerful,
all-knowing, sovereign God. For him,
people can no more choose these events than they can change them or stop them
from happening. For him, the fate of
time continues to tick away independent of our wishes to slow it down, speed it
up, or stop it all together.
The central teachings of Wisdom literature is that God made the world
and an order within which the human race must learn to live. Through wisdom, given as God’s gift, human
beings can cope with the world and live happy and successful lives. Of great concern for the writers of Wisdom
literature was the consequences of human choices upon individuals and society. Wisdom authors saw human beings as active
agents, who choose either the way of righteousness or the way of evil. If people just use sense and reason or
wisdom, they can avoid the unfavorable, negative events of life.
But for the preacher, to attempt to control life is the vanity of all
vanities. Not even smart or righteous
choices can make the events of life change.
Events happen regardless of what choices are made. There is a time for everything because the
events of life are set. The clock
continues to tick. Time cannot be
controlled. All we can do is be prepared
as time moves on. We are left restless
and uneasy from the persistent uncertainty of the events marked by time, the
uncertainty brought about by the back and forth movement, the ebb and flow of
the waves of events of life described by the preacher.
Maybe the preacher is right. Maybe life is about just living and waiting
and preparing ourselves for the different times of life that come along, the
different times of life that will come and go as our days tick away. Maybe we, like the preacher, should just
concede the fact that we cannot escape the movement of time. Any sense or reason or wisdom we have is
really just futile attempts to try to grasp the mystery of God’s divine plan. As the preacher says, no matter how hard we
try we cannot add a favorable event to God’s ordered life, nor can we subtract
from it. Maybe in the end all we can do
is just try to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can.
The preacher’s words are valuable to us, because in
his own way, he shows us what it means to live in a life governed by chronos time, rather than in kairos
time – God’s time. Without Christ, there
is no direction or goal for human beings.
All of life’s roads are dead ends.
Without Christ, there is no hope for the future. It is a dark world in which the preacher
lives, but we cannot be too hard on him for what he did not know was that there
was coming a right time when a light would shine in the darkness, a light for
all of humanity.
The prophet Isaiah proclaimed the
message of hope and of the coming king to a people who were in desperate
times. The words in our text give us a
visual image of what was going on. It
was a dark time for the Israelites. War
had broken out across the land. Enemies
from all sides were ravaging the countryside, destroying crops and live
stock. The country was desolate and
empty. The trampling boots of thousands
of soldiers could be heard all around the land.
The clothes of those who fought and of those who didn’t were soaked in
blood. Those who survived were under a
great burden, they were beaten across their shoulders with staffs and rods of
their oppressors.
There was not much hope for the
people of
The vision Isaiah sees is of a
future when enemies will be no more, when slavery and oppression will be gone,
when the instruments of war and destruction and oppression and rule will be
broken. The very boots of the trampling
warriors and the blood stained clothes will be gathered and be burned in a
great fire whose smoke will proclaim the blessed peace that has fallen on a
delivered country. In Isaiah’s vision he
sees one who is coming, a king, a coming ruler who is
the chosen one of God. But this ruler
will not come in glory or power, but will come as a child, “For a child has
been born for us, a son given to us.”
His name is above every name, so that every knee shall bow and every
tongue shall confess that He is Lord.
He will be called Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of
Peace. Just think about those
names. Close your eyes and hear them
again. Wonderful Counselor: He is the
supreme source of all wisdom; Mighty God: He is Divine in Might, no one is
stronger or more powerful; Everlasting Father: He is a friend and father whose
love for His people will never be destroyed by time or death; Prince of Peace:
when He comes, He will bring peace on earth.
All authority will rest on His shoulders. He will not rule with rods or staffs. He will not rule with armies or wealth. He will rule with justice and righteousness
from this time onward and forever more.
During this advent season,
remember Isaiah’s proclamation of the coming king who brings hope to us in
desperate times. Think about the
sovereignty, love, and grace of God that endures forever in our lives. Remember the promises of God that we will not
be forsaken. Remember that by the grace
and mercy of God there will be no more gloom and no more anguish. This is the message of the coming of
Messiah. This is the message we must
proclaim to others as we actively wait for the Advent of our Lord.
My friends, we cannot continue to
live so focused on chronos time that we miss living
in God’s time. Living in holiness and
godliness is more than just following God’s commandments or being pious, it is
more than just trying to fill as much as we can into a day, being holy and
godly is living in a life oriented in God’s time, living in the hope that God
is at work in us and in our lives of faith every moment of every day, living in
the trust that God will continue to be at work even to the end of the age.
I’m not suggesting we throw away
our watches, clocks, and calendars, although sometimes I have wanted to do just
that, but what I’m suggesting is that during this Advent season we begin to
re-define time for ourselves, that we look for ways to slow down, to commune
with God and with each other, that we become good stewards of our time, because
our time belongs to God. During this time
of Advent, let us remember the peace we have in Jesus Christ, the only one who
gives us all not only peace of mind, but peace of heart. Therefore, let the peace of Christ re-orient
your lives so you may be a people who live in the assurance of God’s salvation
and who are at peace in God’s time.
Amen.