“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.”
So begins the great novel, A Tale of Two Cities … by Charles Dickens … a story of the years leading up to the French Revolution, culminating in the Reign of Terror, where tens of thousands lost their lives to summary executions and to the guillotine … a story of sorrow and greatness … failure and noble sacrifice …
The writer of Ecclesiastes says much the same thing … for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven … a time to be born, and a time to die …
And in between those moments ...
Sorrow and greatness …
Tragedy and glory …
We do our worst, and we do our best …
We build a good world, and we tear it apart with war and greed …
We are mercenary in spirit … and noble in character ...
We love one another, and we are careless with one another …
We are faithless more often than not, and we are faithful when the chips are down …
Like it or not, we are sinner and saint … we are beast and we are angel …
And it’s all mixed up together …
There is time for everything …
Wise is the woman who knows what time it is … and great is the man who understands himself …
Wise is the woman who knows when to the praise the LORD and when to fall on her knees in repentance …
Great is the man who sings the glories of God and weeps the tears of a sinner …
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A Christian honest and true understands both realities … to be happy in the LORD, and to grieve for the world …
To be happy in the LORD, for great things the LORD has done … and great is the name of the LORD … to worship the LORD with joy and gladness … all glory, laud and honor to the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And to grieve for the world, and all its creatures … wise and good is the Christian who pays attention to the world and its tears …
Wise is the Christians who cries for the whales and dolphins and the elephants and the lions … as humankind despoils the water and the air for its own greedy ends …
A Christian who is “happy” all the time is no Christian at all, but only a clown …
A preacher who preaches only joy is no preacher at all … but only a charlatan and a trickster …
Yet ...
A gospel full of sorrow is no gospel at all … because there is hope in God, and there is joy in Christ.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is both joy and sorrow …
Joy in the LORD, for we are redeemed and being made new … and great sorrow, too, as we bear the cross of Christ … and face the realities of sin …
There is happiness in Jesus the Christ, for we walk in his footsteps and carry his message of hope … and sorrow, too, as we grieve with him for the fate of Jerusalem which missed its opportunities for peace.
There is a time for everything …
Wise is the woman and good is the man who knows what time it is …
Paul the Apostle understand times … the times of his life … his former life when he thought he knew everything … a time when he looked down on everyone else … a time of cruelty and pride … who’s in and who’s out … who’s right and who’s wrong … who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.
And Paul’s present life, that of an Apostle, late called, so to speak … for he knows Jesus, not in the flesh, as the other Apostles do, but only in the Spirit, on the Damascus Road, when his world came crashing down … and the times of his life were reset.
Paul knows what time it is … it is a time of grace.
In the fullness of time, Paul writes …
When the time was just right … the porridge neither too hot, nor too cold, but just right …
And who could’ve know such things … but God’s time is God’s time … and when the times are right, God sends his son … not with splendor and glory, but with humility and commonness … born of a women, just like the rest of us … and under the law, as we all are … the laws of religion and and the laws of the state; physical laws of gravity and velocity and time … the laws are good, but they’re not good enough … the man who lives by law will never find the truth of life … the woman who lives only by dos and don’ts will live a narrow and unhappy life.
Laws are good, but not good enough … and Jesus comes to us, born under the law, to redeem us from the law, that we might know the spirit of the law, which is love …
To learn the great truth of all law … the ultimate meaning of all things … the final purpose … to love one another as Jesus loves us … to love as God loves … to love all creatures, great small … the whale and the elephant, the bird above and worm beneath … and to love the strangest of all creatures, made of earth, wind and fire … flesh and spirit bound together by the hand of God … to love our sisters and our brothers - for those who claim to love God, but cannot, or will not, love another, live but a lie and abide in death.
What time is it?
Time for all kinds of things … things sad and terrible … things bright and good …
For us this morning, to lift our sights on high … to know more of Christ, to study his words and to ponder his life … to walk with him in the Land of Galilee … journey with him to Jerusalem … watch him cleanse the temple … stand before his cross on the day of agony, weep by his tomb, and stand in amazement in the Upper Room when he appears.
Like John the Baptist, as he put it, Christ must grow larger in our lives, and we can grow a little smaller, for no one is quite so silly as a man who thinks he’s the measure of all things … and no one is greater than the one who has made plenty of room for the love of Christ.
Amen and Amen!
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