Title: Advent Time Travel

Date: Dec. 3, 2007

A Meditation for Communion on Advent I

By: Kendall Brown

In a number of ways the holidays act like a time machine. But this amazing

time machine has several functions. It can go slow or fast or just plain stop.

It can take us forward or backwards.

The season begins with Thansgiving. Someone said that of our five senses –

sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell - smell is the most intimately connected

with memories. What a bundle of memories is suddenly untied by the smells

coming from the kitchen on Thanksgiving morning. Those smells can hurdle

us across the decades. Images from our childhood that we thought were long

forgotten are discovered to have only been tucked away. The key that

unlocks the surprises is an herb laden aroma that wispfully escapes the oven

and finds our nostrils in another room.

A ride through city streets takes us to many places in our lifetime as we enjoy

again the lights and the sights. Every year, Cheryl and I find new enjoyment

in evening rides this time of year simply to look at lights. Inveritably, at some

point on one of those rides, a corner will be turned, and the color on a display

will be just right to remind me of some Christmas scene in my life in a time gone by.

This season’s time trip can be a rough ride for some. For many, there are many

warm scenes to delight in. It is fun to go to a Hallmark store and see the miniature

villages all ablaze with a homey glow from the inner lights. Familiar streets take

on a warmth as the early evening darkness is pierced by yellow light from windows.

But for some, the season is not always right. For some, the season brings feeling

of being left out in the dark only able to look in at a warm, homey light -

comforting and nourishing someone else. For all the merriment that fills the air

during these days, there are many who are left out in the cold, spirtually,

emotionally and even physically. For many this is a time of year that painfully

reminds us of what life should have been. The greater that feeling, the more

we are left with the sense of being on the outside looking in.

For some the holiday season takes us into a new, strange and even difficult time.

It may be the first holiday season to be without a loved one, a spouse, a parent,

a child, or a friend who died since the last time we were on this trip. The journey

is different now. It is not so enjoyable. The music is not quite as cheery. At

moments, we feel guilty for something very natural – as we wish some one would

just turn off that music. I don’t want to hear it. It hurts too much.

What a time machine this is. Twenty people in the same room can be in 20

different time zones all at the same time. For some the time can’t go by fast

enough. It is a long wait to find out what is in that package so tightly wrapped

and that won’t give off the hint of a sound when picked up and shakened.

Or time can’t go fast enough until that day when we go to the airport to pick

up the returning child who has been away for months on end. Then, when

they get here, time can’t go slow enough. What a fickle thing time is.

For some it is a time to rush, rush, rush. So fast is the pace that we miss

the hush, hush, hush.

In the Biblical language of greek, there are two words for time. One is

chronos from which we get our words chronometer or chronology.

Chronos refers to the time of our days that we measure in minutes,

hours, years and millenii. The amount of time given to us is often marked

by two dates on our grave stones.

There is also another Biblical word for time. It is Kairos. Kairos is

god’s time. Kairos is not a matter of hours and minutes, but a matter of

moments. Kairos is experienced but not as something that passes by

and can be measured in minutes and days. Kairos is experienced as a

breaking in.

Jesus is speaking of this time drawing near and as coming at no known

hour in Luke and today’s passage. In Matthew, Jesus speaks of the

breaking in of Kairos as God’s time in a very literal way – like a thief in

the night. What a scary image that is. Can you imagine being waken

in the middle of the night by the sound of out of place movement somewhere

in your house. Next in the darkness you sense the presence

of a stranger hovering over you bed. It is a nightmare.

But Jesus’ thief is not one that we should lock out. It is a thief to be

welcomed into our homes. His thief is not one who wants or has any use

for our material things, our gold, silver and treasury bond.

He wants our hearts, our souls.

He comes in on his own time. It is a time not to be missed. The

greatest of all Kairos breakthroughs of God’s time into our times

was the birth of Christ. That event was an incredibly insignificant event

tucked away in a moment of history on a dark night in Bethelem.

His birth was so obscure, so well situated in a backwater of history

and time, that God seemed worried it might go completely unnoticed.

That couldn’t be allowed. So a band of angels burst upon the

Shepherds like a thief in the night. The break through

– the Kairos moment – the penetration of God’s time into our

time was heralded by angels singing to shepherds.

The shapherds like us were waiting. They didn’t know that

they were waiting until it happened and they could look back on

that night in hindsight. They were going about their ordinary

routine of work and rest and story telling around a fire. They were

deep into the passage of chronos, human time when in a

burst of glory, God’s time came upon them.

Chronos is experienced by measuring days and hours.

Kairos is experienced by a breaking in – a bursting forth.

Chronos keeps on ticking one second after another

with every second the same. Once kairos breaks in nothing

is ever the same again. For there is something that comes

with the breaking in. It is a presence. It is the presence

of a thief that is a friend. It is the presence of God.

Throughout our time, God hoped and pined that humans

would draw close to God by remembering, worshipping and

serving God. But humans got so caught up in the details

of their times that they grew further and further away

So God took action. If humans kept distancing themselves

from God, God would burst through and be present to us

by becoming one of us.

If we let God’s presence burst into our lives so much of

the worries and anxieties of our time will bepushed aside.

Our hope isn’t found in wishes come true. Our salvation

isn’t in getting better. Our hope is in being in God who

has burst through so that we can live and move and have

our being in him.

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Online study notes for the above sermon

From the FreeDictionary by Farlax

Kairos (καιρός) is an ancient Greek word meaning the "right or opportune moment".

The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to

chronological or sequentia

l time, the latter signifies "a time in between", a moment

of undetermined period of time in which "something" special happens.

What the special something is depends on who is using the word.

While chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature.

In rhetoric kairos is "a passing instant when an opening appears

which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved

In the New Testament kairos means "the appointed time in the purpose of God",

the time when God acts (e.g. Mark 1.15, the kairos is fulfilled).

It differs from the more usual word for time which is chronos (kronos).

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, before the Divine Liturgy begins,

the Deacon exclaims to the Priest, "Kairos tou poiesai to Kyrio"

("It is time [kairos] for the Lord to act"), indicating that the time

the Liturgy is an intersection with Eternity.

For him, the kairoi are those crises in history

(see crisis theology, Christian existentialism) which create an opportunity for,

and indeed demand, an existential decision by the human subject –

the coming of Christ being the prime example (compare Barth's use of geschichte as opposed to historie).

Kairos time is usually perceived as a time of crisis. The Chinese character for “crisis” is often claimed

to be a combination of the characters for “danger” and “opportunity” (though this is not actually true.

[3]) With this in mind, one has a possibility of participating in a “new creation.”†

One has the choice of danger or opportunity, a chance to build something new out of the old.

time bridges the tearing down of the “old way” with the building of a “new way.”

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