kairos – Rev. Tim Ehrhardt

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. (New International Version)

We are invited, through today’s New Testament lesson, to see the moving of history as God sees it.

The Apostle Peter addressed two questions and concerns the people had about the Lord’s coming:

Will this coming be worth the wait?
What should I be doing in the meantime, now, while I wait?

The Christians, for whom Peter wrote his letter, were impatient. They saw time from a mere human perspective. The believers needed a bigger and fuller understanding of God’s purposes. We must come to grips with the reality that God’s timing is different than ours.

There are two words for “time” in the New Testament: chronos and kairos.

Chronos is where we get our English word “chronological.” This is time measured by the clock. It’s the way much of our lives are governed.

Kairos is seasonal time. It’s not determined by the clock but is event oriented.

God is not time-oriented in the same sense that we are. The Lord is not ruled and controlled by the clock but is above all time. God is event-oriented, which is why the Lord’s understanding of time is that a thousand years are like a day, and a day like a thousand years.

In other words, God measures time differently than most Westerners do. When the Bible says Christ is coming soon, it means there are no events left in the course of history except the Day of the Lord, the return of Jesus, to judge the living and the dead.

I admit to being a clock-oriented guy. I also confess that my wife and girls are not. They are much more event oriented than me. So, I suppose when it comes to time, they are the godly ones. After all, the seasons will continue to come and go but a clock will eventually die when its “time is up.”

I cannot begin to count how many hours of my life have been spent waiting on my wife and girls. I used to get frustrated and impatient because I thought they should be clock-oriented, like me.

Yet, over the years, I have learned to accept this reality. Now I take the time of waiting and read. I have read a lot of books over the years through my waiting. I used to want to time travel because of wasted time, but that is all in the past now.

A clock-oriented guy like me needs to grasp that God has all the time in the world. God serves no clock. Clocks are merely playthings for the Lord.

When God wants a hot time, he just puts a clock in the oven. I, however, tend to get antsy, impatient, and frustrated, believing that God must operate on my time schedule. Yet, what seems to me is divine tardiness, is really something else.

God seems slow in keeping divine promises. But the truth is, the Lord takes all the time in the world because of divine mercy. While I am beating my chest trying to get everyone on my time deadlines, God beats up the clock, just to kill time.

In the face of so much that is not right with the world, we might wonder why God is not just stepping in and taking care of all the evil and unjust situations on this earth.

But what we view as a lack of mercy is, in fact, sheer grace on God’s part – patiently waiting for all kinds of people to confess their guilt and shame and come to Jesus. God is waiting for that lost soul to make their way to forgiveness. You cannot bear your secrets with a clock around because time will tell.

Whereas I tend to think I am waiting on God, God is waiting for me, too.

What should I be doing in the meantime while I wait? We ought to be living holy and godly lives as we look forward to Christ’s coming and speed its coming. Yes, God is the One who is waiting on us. Do you know the time of the Second Coming? No, me neither; we have not met yet.

The holiness and peace of God’s people will influence the timing of the Christ’s return. When God upends our current situations, it’s time to get a new set of circumstances. Since God is an event-oriented God, the Lord has all the time in the world to wait on us to be the kind of people we need to be.

The fact that we are two-thousand years removed from the first Advent of Christ probably does not speak very well to the church in general. It will do no good to sit on our watches so that we can be on time. God is still waiting for a lot of folks to come to repentance, as well as the church to take up her mandate of making disciples.

God is gracious and does not bully us or strike us with lightning when we disobey. Rather, God is patient, wanting us to approach and receive mercy. The Lord is waiting for us to avail ourselves of divine help to live holy and godly lives.

Holiness simply means to be separated from evil and connected to God. Godliness means to live a worshipful and spiritually disciplined life. Our Lord’s patience means deliverance from all that detaches us from Jesus so that we might rightly attach ourselves to him.

Robby Robins was an Air Force pilot during the first Iraq war. After his 300th mission, he was given permission to immediately pull his crew together and fly his plane home. They flew across the ocean to Massachusetts and then had a long drive to western Pennsylvania. They drove all night, and when his buddies dropped him off at his driveway just after sun-up, there was a big banner across the garage—”Welcome Home!” How did his wife know? No one had called her, and the crew themselves had not expected to leave so quickly.

Robins relates, “When I walked into the house, my wife came running down the hall—she looked terrific—hair fixed, make-up on, and a crisp yellow dress. ‘How did you know?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t,’ she answered through tears of joy. ‘Once I knew the war was over, I knew you’d be home one of these days. I knew you would try to surprise me, so I was ready every day.'”

In the history of redemption, the war has been won. There is only one event left on God’s calendar: The return of Jesus.

When a clock stops ticking, it just hangs around. That’s not what the Lord wants.

Throwing the watch across the room will not make time fly; Jesus will come when he comes. Meanwhile, our focus is on living holy and godly lives as we wait….

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

There is a right time for everything, and everything on earth will happen at the right time.

There is a time to be born
    and a time to die.
There is a time to plant
    and a time to pull up plants.
There is a time to kill
    and a time to heal.
There is a time to destroy
    and a time to build.
There is a time to cry
    and a time to laugh.
There is a time to be sad
    and a time to dance with joy.
There is a time to throw weapons down
    and a time to pick them up.
There is a time to hug someone
    and a time to stop holding so tightly.
There is a time to look for something
    and a time to consider it lost.
There is a time to keep things
    and a time to throw things away.
There is a time to tear cloth
    and a time to sew it.
There is a time to be silent
    and a time to speak.
There is a time to love
    and a time to hate.
There is a time for war
    and a time for peace.

Do people really gain anything from their hard work? I saw all the hard work God gave us to do. God gave us the ability to think about his world, but we can never completely understand everything he does. And yet, he does everything at just the right time.

I learned that the best thing for people to do is to be happy and enjoy themselves, as long as they live. God wants everyone to eat, drink, and enjoy their work. These are gifts from God. (ERV)

Time is finite. We cannot get it back once we lose it. So, it is important to use our time in ways that reflect our most cherished values and commitments. For that, we need wisdom to know what to do, what not to do, and when to do it.

We can often use our time in strange ways. For example, Rafael Antonio Lozano of Plano, Texas has been on a quest to visit every company-owned Starbucks on the planet. He began his mission in 1997, when there were 1,304 Starbucks stores worldwide. Currently, there are 31,256 stores. As of September 2019, Lozano reported having visited over 15,000 global locations.

Despite his impressive pace, Lozano is realistic about the nature of his quest, saying, “As long as they keep building Starbucks, I’ll never be finished.” He is also realistic about the importance of his mission. “Every time I reach a Starbucks, I feel like I’ve accomplished something,” he said, “when actually I’ve accomplished nothing.”

The book of Ecclesiastes would say, “There is a time to drink coffee, and a time to stay home.” Certainly, Lozano’s personal mission is extreme. But before we get too hard on Rafael, do we have a personal mission? Does it reflect the stewardship of time God has given us? When we get to the end of our lives, will we feel like we have accomplished something only to discover that we have accomplished nothing?

Time is a gift from God, and a temporary commodity to be used for God before the end of time comes.

One of the realities of time is that our lives are full of seasonal rhythms and change over time. These are built into the life God has given us. The book of Ecclesiastes is one that, throughout its contents, explains that nothing we pursue has any permanence to it. We throw ourselves into some work or activity, but what does that activity really do for us in the end?

Time is our master, and we must respect it.

When I was twenty years old, I thought nothing of playing a round of golf in the morning and three sets of tennis in the afternoon, then staying up late at night with friends. If I did that same thing today, I would have a team of doctors attending me in the hospital. We all, at some point, try to defy time and act like we can do the things we once did in the past. Sometimes it takes a lot for us to accept our limitations, whether it is our play or our work. Ecclesiastes teaches us that forces from the outside seem to always dictate what we can do and not do.

Time can be a harsh taskmaster.

The clock relentlessly and inexorably moves forward with the cycles and rhythms of life offering only meaninglessness, as we discover we are prisoners of time. But for the believer, time can be redeemed with godly purpose and meaning, no matter what the season of life is. Because there is time, and all things will someday come to an end – all activity, or the lack of it, will be judged according to how we denied or accepted our limitations due to time.

Ecclesiastes also offers to us what seems a subversive perspective that is counter-cultural to our society. Whereas many Americans believe that if we work hard and do the right thing we can shape our own lives and our own prosperity, the Teacher of Ecclesiastes insists on submitting and moving with the events, rhythms, and seasons of God.

Apart from God, time is futile and meaningless. In our denial, it is no wonder so many persons are so unhappy with their lives.

In the seasons of life and experiences we have from birth to death, the conclusion of Ecclesiastes is that everything is out of our control. Too many of us try to exert control over events, people, and circumstances when, in truth, any control we have is an illusion. I call this the “c-clamp syndrome,” trying to clamp down on others to get them to submit to our agenda.

Instead, Holy Scripture directs us to practice self-control – to focus on myself and my own actions:

Moderation is better than muscle, self-control better than political power. (Proverbs 16:32, MSG)

Prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. (1 Peter 1:13, NLT)

The end of everything has come. Therefore, be self-controlled and clearheaded so you can pray. (1 Peter 4:7, CEB)

Do your best to improve your faith. You can do this by adding goodness, understanding, self-control, patience, devotion to God, concern for others, and love. If you keep growing in this way, it will show that what you know about our Lord Jesus Christ has made your lives useful and meaningful. (2 Peter 1:5-7, CEV)

We cannot make time stand still. So, we must focus on how we spend our time now. It is time for us to lay aside lesser pursuits and diligently pursue God. We each must give ourselves to the unforced rhythms of grace and let God redeem the time. What time is it? It is time to live in harmony with God in all we say and do.

God of all time help us to know ourselves. Teach us to recognize our weaknesses and work to walk in holiness. Let us follow you in all things, submitting to the times you have for us. Thank you for your unending grace and mercy toward us when we need it most. Help us to trust you with our lives through Jesus Christ our Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.