We’re not out of the Coronavirus woods yet, but what a difference a year makes. My Minute from last year:
Feeling great! Diane and I changed our clocks this weekend and set them ahead six months. 2020 is gone. We had been in fall, cold, gray winter coming. Now it’s spring, sunshine abounds. We had been cooped up by Covid. Now we’re out and about, still careful but mingling with family and friends. We had been in an insane election campaign. Now it’s over. I won’t tell you who won. Why should I? You set your clocks BACK? You wanted more of 2020?
That’s silly, but only in part. Everyone has troubles and we Christians are not exempt, but when we are tried, we have an inexhaustible source of help. You draw from the rich and relevant teachings of faith, not just “Jesus died for your sins,” but how His death, resurrection, and Spirit really work in our troubled lives. An example is time travel.
About the pandemic: “The unending sense of crisis is an ‘ongoing, chronic stressor’ that can lead to a collapse of the reassuring sense that our lives move in orderly fashion: past, present, future, which is key to mental stability. Instead, many of us feel stuck in a lousy present with little sense of the future” (Alex Williams, New York Times, November 1; 8). The ancient Greeks had two words for time. Chronos meant the ongoing march of time, day to day, week to week, what Mr. Williams was describing. But the Greek word Kairos meant “the right, proper, favorable time” (BDAG, 497). Kairos is, like when the tomato is ripe for you to pick, when it’s smart time to buy or sell, or now, Kairos means summoning faith’s resources in affliction.
“We were buried…with him by baptism into death.” It’s not “baptism is like being buried.” No, mysteriously you were transported out of present time. “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:4, 5). “Body here yet soul above,” the hymn teaches. Faith and hope time travel right now, lifting off from confinement when the things of sight can be so depressing.
Yes, we did set our clocks back one hour, but having clocks all over the house, we were often confused. “What time is it really?” It’s time to “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).
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