The Lord of Time: Ecclesiases 3:1-8 - First Sunday of Christmas & New Year's Day

A Cosmic Tarantula, Caught by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope CC BY 2.0

 

What is time? How would you define it?

I’d say that time is something that I never seem to have enough of. It’s an enemy that makes good times end and difficult times stretch on forever. But that’s my opinion of time.

If someone gave you paper and crayons, how would you draw it?

Perhaps you would draw a clock. But that would be incorrect, because a clock is a machine to measure time. It isn’t time itself.

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Perhaps you would draw an arrow, because time is always moving forward—but the future doesn’t move in the direction of right or left, up or down

Coming up with a definition of time is something that has challenged the world’s greatest minds.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson defines time as that which “makes us all a prisoner of the present, forever transitioning from our known past into an unknown future.”

Albert Einstein spoke of time as an illusion. In his famous theory of relativity, he asserted that time is fluid and is affected by gravity and velocity. What he is saying is that time actually moves slower the closer you are to the gravitational center of the earth. Think of it this way: if you were to take a set of identical twins and put one in a rocket ship that travels through outer space at the speed of light, and left the other twin on earth, the one who flew on the rocket ship will have been transported into the future and will have aged less than the one who stayed on earth.

I’m not trying to make your brain hurt, any more than I’m trying to present myself as an astrophysicist.

But one thing that really grabbed my attention is that Neil deGrasse Tyson named ancient astronomers as his professional ancestors. This is what the Magi were. They measured time by studying the movement of the planets and stars relative to the Earth. This makes me wonder if what the Magi witnessed was God tearing through the fabric of space and time, like a shooting star, but so much more—something so out of the ordinary that they dropped everything, saddled up their camels, and went to investigate this phenomenon for themselves.

The cosmic mystery of Christmas is the eternal God entering time and dwelling within a temporal body. The miracle of faith is when you live in relationship with the eternal Christ, his eternity is going to shape your time.

God is the inventor of time. The universe we inhabit is constantly growing, and constantly in motion. God is acting within space and time to shape and order the universe he created out of nothing. The purpose of the Christian life is for our life’s times to be spent co-creating God’s vision of the future.

Because we exist in time, your life’s time will end. But death will not be the end of you. All time and space move in the direction of life. All time and space move in the direction of God.
Good times, bad times, and even death all serve a higher purpose. God uses time brings you nearer to salvation.

So what will 2023 bring? Many economists say it will bring a recession, which will mean lost jobs and harder times for many, especially the poor. By all indications, 2023 will be the fourth year we will be dealing with COVID-19. The way things have been, it’s a challenge to celebrate a new year that promises so much uncertainty.

Regardless, we know that there will be:

a time for birth and death, planting and reaping,
for killing and healing, destroying and building,
for crying and laughing, weeping and dancing,
for throwing stones and gathering stones, embracing and parting.
…a time for finding and losing, keeping and giving,
for tearing and sewing, listening and speaking.
…a time for love and hate, for war and peace. (Ecclesiastes 3:2-8 CEV).

And in all these times, there will be Jesus Christ. But to experience the fullness of Jesus in the fullness of time demands that you make him the Lord of your time. No Christian should ever say that you don’t have time for worship or prayer, bible study or Christian fellowship. No Christian should ever say that they don’t for Sabbath or service to others. God will always give you time for the things that truly matter. If you don’t seem to have that time right now, God will provide if you seek it and pray for it instead of guarding or hoarding your time in fear that you won’t have enough of it for yourself. The only “Fear Of Missing Out” (or FOMO) the Christian should know is being so distracted by the world that you miss out on what God is doing.

You don’t have time not to put Christ first, because God’s kingdom will move forward with or without you, with or without our church.

But when Christ is Lord of your time, God’s eternal love will give you times of joy and salvation in times of sorrow.

All time and space move in the direction of life. All time and space move in the direction of God.

So don’t live in fear of the future’s unknowns—because God will make himself known in the future. All time marches forward in God’s direction. What more could we ask for on this New Year’s Day?