Christmas Eve 2011

Luke 2:1-20

 

WHAT TIME IS IT?

 

Beloved people of God, grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.

AMEN.

 

When I was growing up in Northern Wisconsin, my family had a tradition of traveling to Minneapolis on the day after Thanksgiving to do Christmas shopping and look at the Christmas decorations.  For a small town boy from rural Wisconsin this was big stuff.  We shopped at Daytons and Donaldsons—the two big downtown department stores.  My sister and I were each given $10 to buy gifts for other family members.  $10 was worth more then than it is now, but it still did not go very far.

 

We always ate lunch at the Nankin, a huge Chinese restaurant.  The Nankin was a downtown landmark for 80 years until it closed in 1999.  What a treat it was for a growing boy to eat a heaping plate full of chow mein!

 

When the stores would close, we would begin the drive back home.  In good weather it was a 2 hour drive.  But one year the weather was particularly bad.  The streets of Minneapolis shimmered with ice under the glare of the street lights.  Once we were out of the city, blowing snow was drifting across the road.  I never worried when my dad was driving, but I could sense that he was a little more tense than usual.  The conditions worsened as we continued toward home.  It was hard to see out of the car windows.

 

Suddenly my dad pulled over and stopped.  He had seen a car buried in the snow down in the ditch.  My dad had to be careful where he stopped our car so that we did not get stuck ourselves.

 

This single car accident had happened shortly before we arrived.  The family inside the car was stunned.  The mother especially needed medical attention.  This was in the days before cell phones, so we took the family to a farmhouse just down the road, and my dad called from there for medical help and a tow truck.  Once the medical help and tow truck arrived, we were able to continue on our way.  We were very glad to arrive home safely.

 

A few days later we received a Christmas card from the family.  The mother had spent a couple days in the hospital.  Her family had stayed with the farm family, until she was well enough to travel home.  They were so thankful that we had come along at just the right time to help them.  They were, of course, also very thankful for the hospitality of the farm family.

 

In the biblical tradition timing is critical in terms of God’s action and human action.  The Greek New Testament has two primary words for time—chronos and kairos.  Chronos refers to quantitative time, time measured with a clock or a calendar—that is, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years.  In Western culture we tend to be particularly conscious of chronological time.  For example, when we make appointments, we expect people to be on time.

 

Kairos refers to a decisive moment or period of time.  It is the fitting or opportune time for something to happen.  Kairotic time is qualitative rather than quantitative.  One needs to discern whether it is the right time to do something.

 

When a couple decides to get married, they may need to think chronologically to schedule the wedding date.  Deciding whether it is the right time to get married, however, is a question of kairotic time.  The couple needs to consider questions such as: Do we love each other?  Are we mature enough to get married?  Are we compatible with one another?  You do not look at a calendar or a watch to answer such questions.

 

God is the master of acting at the kairos moment.  God knows precisely when to intervene.  To recognize when God is acting, the people of God need a strong sense of kairotic time.  A watch or calendar will not help.

 

As Paul asserts in Galatians 4:4, when the fullness of time had come, God sent Jesus into the world.  In reading the Christmas story we see that Luke was interested in the chronological time of Jesus’ birth.  Jesus was born shortly after Emperor Augustus ordered a census to be taken and while Quirinius was governor of Syria.  But more important for Luke is that Jesus’ birth is the decisive moment in history—the turning point.  As Richard Foster explains, for followers of Jesus “the children of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, the fall of Jerusalem to Rome, the collapse of the Roman Empire, the spread of Islam, the merging of city-states into nations, the Renaissance, World Wars I and II were critical turning points, but none shaped or defined history like Jesus Christ.”[1]  We date our calendars in relation to the coming of Jesus.  But far more important for followers of Jesus is the recognition that the coming of Jesus is a kairos moment.

 

Luke emphasizes that Jesus was not born among the spiritual, intellectual, economic, and political elite, but among those of low estate.  His mother Mary was a young teenage girl.  His father Joseph was a carpenter.  They came from the small town of Nazareth.  In Bethlehem they had to stay in a stable with the animals, because there was no room in the inn.  The first to hear the good news of Jesus’ birth were simple shepherds.  God had confidence that these common folk—Mary and Joseph and the shepherds—would recognize the birth of Jesus as a kairos moment.  They discerned that God was visiting them in this newborn baby.

 

When we gather together on Christmas Eve to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it is a sign that we too recognize God’s presence in Jesus.  From a chronological standpoint we are celebrating an amazing event that happened over 2000 years ago.  From the standpoint of kairotic  time, the key question is: What does the birth of Jesus mean for us today?  Or to put it another way: what time is it?

 

When it comes to kairotic time, the most decisive moment is the present.  As Leo Tolstoy once said, “remember this, there is only one important time: Now. And the most important person is the person we see now.  God gives us one opportunity at a time.  The person I meet now and the task that lies immediately before me are always more important than anyone or anything in the future.  The future may never happen.  The present is a reality.”[2]  As people of faith, we are called to discern God’s purpose for us in the present moment.  Too often we get caught up in trying to manage time.  According to Mark Buchanan, “the truly purposeful have an ironic secret: they manage time less and pay attention more.  They’re fully awake.”  [3]Those in tune with kairotic time are awake to what God is up to in the present moment.

 

Thus, even as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we are dialed in on what God is up to now in this kairos moment.  That does not mean we need to leave the Christmas story behind in discerning what time it is.  We can take cues from the decisive actors in Luke’s story of Jesus’ birth.

 

Like the shepherds, we can recognize that now is a time for proclaiming the good news of Jesus.  When the shepherds heard the good news of his birth from the angel, they were so excited they went with haste to see the newborn Christ child.  Once they had seen Jesus they could not keep from telling people about what they had witnessed.  How has the good news of Jesus impacted your life?  The time to share that good news is now.

 

Also like the shepherds, we can recognize that now is a time for praising God.  In Luke 2:20 we are told that “the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”  We are gathered here this evening to glorify and praise God.  Those attuned to what God is up to in the present moment will be inspired to glorify and praise God over and over again.

 

Like Mary, we can recognize that now is a time to ponder what God is doing in our lives.  In Luke 2:19 we are told that “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”  Is it not amazing that God entrusted a simple uneducated girl to carry the true meaning of this wondrous birth in her heart?  We tend to get so busy in life that we do not set aside needed time to ponder.  Time to meditate, pray, reflect, and be silent is essential to discerning God’s presence and purpose in our lives.

 

Like the angels, we can recognize that this is a time for peacemaking.  The angel chorus announced, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”  We tend to think of peace in terms of the absence of war and conflict.  That is part of its meaning.  But in the biblical tradition peace means much, much more.  The Hebrew word shalom, translated as “peace,”  refers to well-being of mind, body, and spirit, well-being in all our relationships, well-being in our communities, well-being among nations, well-being in creation.  God is constantly at work seeking well-being for all of us and the whole creation.  As followers of Jesus, inspired by his wondrous birth, we are called to be peacemakers—that is to participate with God in seeking well-being for all.

 

On that wintry day after Thanksgiving years ago, my parents recognized what time it was—it was a kairos moment.  They knew this family needed us to stop.  The farm family also recognized what time it was.  Typically we would not describe what my parents and this farm family did as peacemaking.  However, whenever we seek the well-being of other human beings in need, we are being peacemakers.

 

In a world in which there continues to be so much want and suffering, God needs people who recognize what time it is, who like the shepherds know it is time to proclaim the good news and to praise God, who like Mary know it is time to ponder the meaning of his wondrous birth, and who, inspired by the angels, know it is time to engage in peacemaking.  God needs these kairos people now.

In Jesus’ name, AMEN.