“Time is life’s most precious commodity.” So says a current TV commercial for some medicine. Whoa! A great example of how the culture around us insidiously undermines God’s truth. How do we talk about time? “Do you have a minute?” “I’m running out of time.” “Time Management.” The late Jim Croce sang, “there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do, once you find them.” What’s the common thread in all these expressions? We’re conditioned to think about time as a thing, as the commercial says, a “commodity.”
If God wanted us to think about time as a thing, time would be under the Seventh Commandment, “You shall not steal.” Nope. Time has its own commandment, the Third. “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.” That’s about WAY MORE than going to church. The First Commandment teaches us to love God in our heart. The Second Commandment to love God in our speech, and the Third? Love God in all your time.
Maybe you’ve traveled to Europe and seen the great cathedrals, or visited St. Patrick’s in New York or the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. You can spend hours, even days looking into all the nooks and crannies of these awesome edifices. Imagine this: You are in the cathedral of God’s building, His unfathomable creation. On Sunday’s you are at the high altar, worshipping, receiving Christ in Word and Sacrament. During the week you’re working at your job because God’s great cathedral needs workers. When you have your daily devotions, it’s like pausing during your work at one of the side altars in God’s great cathedral. Time, not a thing, a commodity, but always living in the presence of God, in His cathedral.
The secular runup to Christmas will end. If you think of time as a commodity, you know it will run out. “Time like an ever-rolling stream soon bears us all away.” But time in God’s cathedral never ends. At Christ’s final Advent, you’ll be with “angels, and archangels, and all the company of heaven.”