God’s time, our time

Dec. 12, 2013

Dear People of Christ Church,
Christmas is in less than two weeks, but it seems like Advent just started; it's a little unsettling to have gone from a late Thanksgiving and into a short Advent; it never seems like there's enough time.  Of course, it never seems like there's enough time: never, ever, ever.

The English language is kind of vague when it comes to the use of that word, "time"-it can be both mundane sequence and transcendent eternity, but it often has a very literal connotation. "Time" speaks to things that can be numbered and analyzed, but that says nothing about the importance of what has happened or the unfolding of purpose or desire. Greek does a little better; it has both a word for the sense of time-sequence as well as a word for the depth of time, of the nearing of the right time. Chronos is chronology, of one event after another, but kairos is the unfolding of God's time.  It's when the planets align and the season is right.

There are 12 days until Christmas (You probably know those "Twelve Days of Christmas for partridges and pear trees are the days between the holiday itself and Epiphany). You may have a lot to do or you may have not enough to do-the seasons of life can be feast or famine. Even though the whole point of the church year is to do some of this work, Advent in particular invites us to try to peer inside time, to look down into the depth of each moment into the transcendent present.

Advent is about waiting; there's chronos in waiting for those days to tick down bite by chocolate Advent calendar bite. On a different level, though, Advent is also a pattern for our whole lives, of watching and waiting for the coming of Christ and the big reconciling of the world. But we also watch for the tiny Advents and Christmases of our daily lives: the birth of a child, the death of a parent, the deep transitions and movements and shifts that make us who we are. It doesn't always have to be BIG, like we say in the Advent communion prayer, "Christ coming again to restore the world."  Advent watchful waiting is being open to what the kairos is of the present moment, however slight the movements may be.  Christ will restore the world in a big way at the end of time, but Christ is also moving to restore the world in our lives in smaller ways, too. 

Kairos treats each moment as having the potential to be a revelation of God's presence because it implicitly acknowledges that our lives are in God's hands.  It's not about what we accomplish or where we have to be next.   It's about what's happening now, listening to hear what God is doing now.  On the first Sunday of Advent, we read Romans 13:11: "Besides this, you know what time (kairos) it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near." The day is near:  what do you pray is coming in the right time, the kairos brush with eternity that could come at any moment? What is this season of your life offering you in God's time?

Blessings,
Sara+