God’s Time
December 31, 2006
Reformation, Media
First Sunday of Christmas
Larry V. Smoose
For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Tonight, New Year’s Eve, most of us will be clock watchers – more than on any other day of the year we are aware of the passage of time, counting the moments, watching the great orb in Times Square descend and being ready to welcome in the New Year.
I used to think that time was a carefully measured entity – seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years. And certainly tonight, that will tend to be our focus. And I know that in track or swimming a hundredth of a second can make a difference, and in computers, nano-seconds are counted. But God’s time is measured differently.
God’s time is a far more accurate measurement than human time, and the more we become aware of God’s time, the more we can appreciate it. Part of our understanding of God’s time is expressed in the verse I quoted at the beginning, from Ecclesiastes – for Everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. God’s time is measured in seasons. Not the seasons of the year – Winter, Spring Summer and Fall – but the seasons of life, the seasons of happenings, the season of history.
We have examples of God’s seasons in our lessons today and all through the Bible. The first lesson, from Samuel is about the boyhood of Samuel. You might remember that Samuel’s mother, Hannah had not been able to have any children. For years she prayed that God might grant her a child until finally, after she was past the time when women usually bear children, but in God’s time, her prayers were answered. So often in the Bible we read phrases like “In the fullness of time,” or “When the time was right” as ways of expressing not the length of time chronologically, but the moment when, according to God’s plan, it is proper for an event to occur.
The Word used for this in the Bible is Kairos. KAIROS time represents those rich, extra-special, significant, dramatic moments in life which are packed with meaning. Those moments that stand out and stay with us for a lifetime, forever inspiring and instructing us. KAIROS time is full time, vital time, decision time -- God's time.
After today’s lesson about Jesus at age 12, we don’t hear about him again until he is about 30 and beginning his ministry. How many of our young people feel as if they have to make decisions about careers at age 18 or 21, and yet our Lord did not start his ministry – the fulfillment of his destiny – until age 30. And though it lasted only 3 years, his life changed the world. Length of life is not the only measure of value in life, and age alone does not guarantee meaning in life.
This concept is increasingly important for us because of our preoccupation with chronological time. Every day gives us 86,400 seconds and we are determined to use every one of them, cramming as much as we can in every day. It is not a bad thing to be efficient, or to try to make good use of time, but let’s be sure it is good use of time and not simply filling every moment of the day.
When Matthew was attending West Point, I used to look forward to driving up to the academy to pick him up for weekends off. It was three hours each way, but half of that time would be uninterrupted time together to talk – without TV or phone calls or other impediments. On occasion, during that chronological time, it would be “the right time” to talk about an important issue or concern. God would use the time in ways we had not always anticipated. These are times that no wrist watch can measure, for its measure is in the abundance of life experienced in those moments.
In this new year, I want you to provide opportunities in your schedule – for kairos moments? And when a kairos moment occurs, take time to savor it.
For the Kamin/Brown/Luce families this morning, we are experiencing a Kairos moment which I know they will savor for the rest of their lives, as Margaret is baptized. Along the way, Margaret will experience other Kairos moments at First Communion and Confirmation, marking significant stages in her life. What will your kairos moments be this year?
In addition to our personal lives, we have an opportunity to savor Kairos moments of history. Some churches have a “watch night” service on New Year’s Eve, but not all of them remember how it got that name. It actually began in Europe, with the Moravians in 1733. The first watch night service in the U.S. was here in Philadelphia in 1770 at Old St. George’s Methodist Church. They were covenant renewal ceremonies, based on Mark 13 – Watch therefore, for you know not the time of the Lord’s coming. Initially, it was a reminder to always be ready to meet the call of our Maker.
However that meaning was expanded at one of the best known Watch Night services. It occurred in 1862, filling this evening with new meaning for the African American community. On that night, African Americans gathered in churches to Watch for the official beginning of Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation. They had been praying for freedom for decades, but on January 1, 1863 it was the fulfillment of those prayers to God and a time for rejoicing. Since that time, Watch night has also been about our confidence in God to bring about promised justice and righteousness and to watch for its fulfillment.
Participation in these moments in history becomes participation in God’s Kairos and a reminder that there is A time for war and a time for peace, a time to sow and a time to reap, a time to mourn and a time to dance. It is dancing when Dr. King marched on Washington and mourning in a candlelight service when 9/11 occurred. It is a reminder of how long we have to work for justice and of how quickly life can change, and our need to rely always on God to be with us through all the seasons of life.
Perhaps best of all IS HOW GOD GIVES US THE OPPORTUNITY TO DISCOVER HOW TO CONVERT OUR CHRONOS TIME TO KAIROS.
Dr. John Killinger tells of a story he found in GUIDEPOSTS Magazine about a woman who was feeling very unhappy about growing older. She took her daughter for her first horseback riding lesson. As a girl, she had always wanted to learn to ride, but had been unable to do so. At least her daughter would learn, she thought. But taking the daughter added to her sense of depression. She felt life was quickly passing her by, and it would always be incomplete because she had not fulfilled her childhood desires.
Back at home, she ran across a little booklet her daughter had made when she was eight years old and in the third grade. It was titled "The ME Book." It was about the daughter''s life up to that point. There were eight pages, one for each year of her life, and on each page there was a photograph of the daughter at that age.
Slowly, the mother turned the pages, looking at her daughter's pictures. When she came to the last page. She expected it to say "The End." But it didn't. It said, "The Beginning."
The mother shook her head. It took a moment for the meaning to sink in. The teacher had had the students write "The Beginning" on the last page instead of "The End" because their lives were only beginning at that point.
It was a Kairos moment for her. Her own life wasn't at the end, it was at the beginning! Her whole attitude changed. She decided it wasn't too late to learn to ride a horse. She asked her daughter's teacher and soon they were riding around a track together, adding another dimension to her life.
She had learned an important lesson. Never think of any time as the end of your life, for every moment is only the beginning of the rest of it. Even death itself, when we are in Christ Jesus, is the beginning of eternal life. (2)
God measures time in seasons because for the eternal one, measurements do not matter, only seasons matter, only moments matter. And God wants us to worry less about time and more about moments and seasons in our lives and to assure us that the season of this life, with all of its treasured moments, will finally conclude with a new – as yet not experienced season as we enter into God’s eternal time and the new life that he promises. For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven! Tonight is time to give God thanks for new beginnings! Have a blessed new year.
Amen.