We have three clocks in our Campus Center. All three have vastly different times displayed on their face. It is because all three have stopped. They are powered by battery and, with such little use of our building, I have seen no reason to change batteries. Except for staff, there are very few in need of knowing what the current time might be. I guess we could say that at University Lutheran Church/Lutheran Campus Ministry time has stood still.
Of course this is not really so. With our without properly working timepieces, time moves on. We are not in need of any devices to tell us so.
I find it interesting; strange, even, that during our pandemic that forces us to be home and venture out only rarely, time seems to be going by faster than ever. At first I thought this was just my experience, but every time I mention it to someone else they, often emphatically, agree.
I would be interested in your theories as to why tempus is really fugiting* during a time we spend an inordinate amount of time at home. Let me know your thoughts.
In the New Testament there are two words for time: chronos (chronological) and Kairos (God’s time). Kairos is used 86 times in the New Testament. St. Paul is a fan of the word. Kairos is a time of opportunity, a time to act, a time, even, of conversion or transformation.
Why might this be so? I don’t think it is because we are fixed on some future time period when all this will have passed. At least that never worked for me as a kid anxiously awaiting the arrival of Christmas. Is it because our lives and routines are so changed we are not stuck in the rut of routines we have lived out for many years? One day would look much like the previous day and the one to follow. I’m not certain of that, either. Pandemic living has brought some boring moments and have developed their own routines.
The question I have posed concerning time seemingly flying by is a time of chronos, chronology. Naturally pandemic time is such. Yet it can also be a time of Kairos; a time of God, a time of opportunity and a time to act. Maybe, just maybe, time is zipping by because we have been forced to recognize what things are really most important. We have been forced to realize how even the ordinary and routine have their own importance and even a hint of sacredness in them. Maybe, just maybe what moves us along is that this has been in a more obvious way, what time has always been: God’s time; Kairos.
No pun intended, but this is a timely message for Easter. The events of betrayal, arrest, torture, trial, and crucifixion were not able to stop time as they were not able to stop God. As difficult as this pandemic has been, it has not prevented God from coming to God’s people and finding ways to use God’s people however differently.
Let your fugit tempus. Not even pandemic time has been a waste of time. Our lives this past year may not have been as full as we would have preferred, but there was a certain fullness in them. A shut-down of our normal lives was not able to shut out God. All Chronos is Kairos. All time belongs to a God who refuses to be stopped.
*Years ago clocks would often have “Tempus Fugit”, Latin for “Time Flies” written on their face.