Numbers 6.22-27; Galatians 4.4-7
Time is a funny thing … and by funny, I don’t mean chuckle-funny, but odd-funny … strange and mystifying funny … weird, unnerving, impossible-to-define, kind of funny …
Time … when we’re children, we have all of it … it’s ours, to have and to hold, forever … the clock never runs down, the calendar always has another page, the rising of the sun is a constant … again and again … and once again … so it is, when we’re children.
Time drags, when we’re children … Christmas never arrives … the 16th birthday never gets here … on a trip, we ask, “Are we there, yet?” … and Mom or Dad, slightly exasperated by it all, say, “Soon, every soon … just another hour or two” … and we flop back in our seat, and groan in our own little puddle, of a child’s indignant weariness.
Time, for a child, is a cheap commodity … not that a child disregards time … not at all … children know the miracles of time … time is never wasted for a child … all of time is time well-spent - every toy, a tool … every game, work at play … every friend, an experiment in social arrangements and emotional testing … to learn limits and boundaries … with a temper tantrum now and then … just to see how that works out … because life is a vast experiment, and children are really good at it … because they have the time to play with time, to see how it works.
And, then, one day, in our late 20s, or early 30s, we hear a tick, and then a tock … we cock our ears and, like dog, twist our head a bit, trying a little harder to hear whatever it is we’re hearing … that little tick, a little tock … and then a few more …
Nothing much to concern us … a strange sound to our ears, and we begin to think of things that have never occurred to us in the daily rounds of school and romance and job and dreams … that one day, it will end … we scratch our heads and we stare, for a few moments, into some unknown light, far ahead of us.
Well, here we are, at the turn of a calendar page, the turn of a year, a twist of time …
In times past, it was all about the seasons … when to plow and when to plant, when to harvest …
Sundials and obelisks - shadow clocks … in the Bible, first watch and second watch, and so on … the monasteries kept track of time with the seven offices - matins and lauds, vespers and compline … for ships sailing the seven seas, hour glasses and mechanical devices.
With the industrial age, a new kind of time … the day shift, the night shift, the graveyard shift … days on, days off … sick days and vacation.
Time … a twist of time … and then one day, we look back at a past considerably longer than our future … the endless days of youth evolve into a hastening rush of days, and then months, and then years, roaring on by … and we wonder where all the time has gone …
The children grow up and leave home … and return home … and then leave again … and we get older … we wonder what it’s all about - who are we? … where did we come from? … where are going? … does life have meaning, other than what I make it to be?
We have questions … sometimes peaceful about it all.
Time takes our hand and says, “Come and follow me,” and we have little choice in the matter …
Time has its way with us … and we don’t even ask anymore, “Are we there yet?” … we’re not sure where “there” is, and we’re not sure how we’re getting there … and maybe we don’t even want to get there …
But it’s God who whispers consolingly to us, “Just a few more hours. We’ll be there soon.”
Maybe there’s been enough love sewn into the warp and woof of life’s fabric … maybe enough laughter … enough success … enough travel …
I know, for a lot of folks, pleasures and joyful moments are few and far between … or maybe not all …
But if we’ve been fortunate enough, we might be able to count our blessings, at least a few of them, and name them, one-by-one, as the hymn puts it …
To make our resolutions anew … which is something we do when the calendar turns - we look at time, and give it significance … which is a good thing to do … sure, it’s a children’s game … the turning of the clock … time is time … so we give it names …
The old year is running out of the house to wherever it goes … and the new year comes our way, knocking on the door, and it all seems fresh and kind and hopeful to us … and we resolve to do better …
Nothing wrong with our resolutions … if, for no other reason, we can chuckle about them a few months from now, as one more effort among so many to quit smoking, lose some weight, read that book we bought two years ago, fix the hinge on the bedroom closet door, see the dentist, and check on some old friends, too long ignored, not because we wanted to ignore them, but time just got away from us.
Maybe we put off for another day what might be done today … the one good thing about putting off for tomorrow what should be done today is that when tomorrow comes, we’ll always have something to do …
A twist of time … the end of a cycle, the end of a year … a twist of time, and the future unfolds … life goes on … Christ is born … there is love to be given, and love to be received … books to read, and books that’ll never be read, but that’s ok, we’ve given them shelter in our homes, on a coffee table in the living room, or on a shelf in a study …
A twist of time .. a tick, a tock … “What time is it? we ask … rubbing our eyes like a sleepy child, at the end of the day … or bouncing out of bed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, on a fine Christmas morning.
What time is it? we ask …
May all of us find the time to love and be loved; to forgive and be forgiven, to even start over on a few things … or let some things slip away, because they’re not worth keeping … may the time we have be mostly well-spent … but then, time-wasted is ok, too.
We can’t always be ever-wise and oh-so-thoughtful … we are what we are … and we hope to do a little better, and we will, and sometimes we won’t.
What time is it?
Let’s see what the day holds for us … a tick, a tock, a twist in time … a star above, some angels in the field, a Creator’s promise: Let there light.
Amen and Amen!
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