THE MEANING OF TIME (PART II)
Thoughts on the meaning of time, Part II (read Part 1 here)
The life of Jesus Christ changed the way the people of God experience time. Jewish weekly time was rooted in six days of work leading to a Sabbath. Holy week narrates Jesus’ fulfillment of this time. He entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the first day of the week. He finished his work on Friday, the sixth day. This is the primary meaning of the words “It is finished” (John 19:30). The word “finished” is a form of the world “teleo” which is related to “telos.” On the cross, both time and the covenant were brought to their completion.
This created an entirely new experience of time. Time is no longer six days of labor that strive for a day of rest. Rather, through our baptism “into Christ” our labor is completed and we enter into rest “in him” (cf. Heb. 4:3). The church experiences this sense of time in the Eucharist. From the beginning, the church celebrated the Eucharist on Sunday, the first day of the week, because this is the Day of Resurrection. In the Eucharist, we experience the fulfillment of time. We enter into the time of the New Creation, the time in which God has made all things new (cf. Rev. 21:5, 2 Cor. 5:17). We are longer in the world laboring toward a desired rest. We are in the world as witnesses for the kingdom of God, a kingdom in which we already live (cf. Acts 1:8).
Something strange and unexpected happened in the events of the Cross and Resurrection in terms of the Jewish understanding of time. Time was completed and the covenant was fulfilled. The event which marked the center piece and culmination of time had already occurred, but the full implications of that dual fulfillment were not yet manifested in the world. Israel was still under Roman occupation and the Gentile adversaries of God's people were still in power. Yet Israel's hope was fulfilled, and the powers of the world and its prince were judged in a full and final way (cf. John 16:11).
This was a principle point of consternation for the Jewish Messianic hopes. The Jews expected the resurrection of Israel (cf. Ezek. 37) and judgement on the nations. They did not expect the resurrection of one representative Israelite in the middle of history and a sentence of judgment on God's adversaries to be proclaimed but not yet fully enacted. The Christian experience of time is rooted in this dynamic interaction and tension between fulfillment and expectation. The kingdom of God is here and we are its citizens. But, of course, the kingdom of God is not yet fully here. We pray, “Thy kingdom come, they will be done.” This tension and paradox is the foundation for the Christian experience of time. This is sometimes described as the “already but not yet” nature of the kingdom.
However, too frequently the “already but not yet” Christian sense of time becomes merely a cognitive "belief." Too frequently, this belief is not translated into a new experience of time through participation in the church’s life of prayer. We do not merely “believe” that we now live in the kingdom. Rather, we experience union with God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit through our life of prayer. Life in the Spirit, in the kingdom, is our mode of being. It is the way we experience time “in Christ” and it stands in stark contrast with the way people experience time in "the world” and in "the flesh” (cf. Gal. 5:16f.).
This experience of time requires effort on our part. Our default setting, what we naturally regress to without a purposeful discipline of prayer, is to live in the world according to the disorder of the world and the desires of our sinful nature. The only way to effectively combat this is to establish and persevere in disciplines of prayer that reorient our lives towards the reality of the kingdom of God. What we call the “life of prayer” is simply the discipline of living in the kingdom of God rather than in the world. This requires a change in our daily behaviors. It is not enough to merely change our minds.
Part III will explore the sense of time experienced in the life of prayer as it is rooted in the church year.