THE MEANING OF TIME (PART III)
Thoughts on the meaning of time, Part III (read Part 2 here.)
Let us summarize three important points from the previous posts. First, the church year is the way the church experiences the true meaning of time that was revealed in the covenant God made with Israel, in the light of the fulfillment of both time and the covenant by Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Messiah of Israel. Second, this experience of time is rooted in the dynamic relationship between fulfillment and expectation, between the current experience of the kingdom "in the Spirit" and the longing for its fulfillment in the coming of Christ. Third, this experience of time requires commitment to disciplines of prayer that are rooted in the church year.
Let us pursue this third point. As with Israel, the church experiences time in two cycles, the year and the week. Each year we make a pilgrimage through the central events in the life of Jesus. Each of these seasons and feasts is experienced as fulfillment and anticipation. For example, in Epiphany Christ is revealed to us in a new way in this Epiphany season, and this current experience looks forward to Christ's final Epiphany at his coming. Thus the church year always leads us into a current experience of the kingdom that is moving forward towards a completed experience at the coming of Jesus.
This same pattern of fulfillment and expectation is experienced in each week. Every Sunday in the Eucharist the church experiences a “little Easter.” There are many facets to this experience. Christ comes to meet his people and his people are gathered to meet him in a manner that anticipates the Second Coming of Jesus. Christ comes to us as the Bread of Life in the Sacrament to raise us from death to life. We ascend with Christ and join with angels and archangels to sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” As we leave this experience of union with God in Christ at the altar, we return to the world as witnesses, to do the good works God has prepared for us to walk in (Eph. 2:10).
Our time begins in Christ and our time ends in Christ because Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the source and goal of time (Rev. 1:8). Thus, our time that begins on the first day of the week in the Eucharist comes to completion on the eighth day, again in the Eucharist. Our return on the eighth day both anticipates the Second Coming and also begins a new week in the New Creation. This time is constantly moving forward toward its fulfillment. Each Sunday and each feast of the year is actually closer to the coming of Christ than the previous Sunday and year. One Sunday we will say, “Behold the Lamb of God” and it will be him, in person.
This experience of prayer continues each day. In the Anglican tradition, daily prayer is rooted in the discipline of praying the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer. As we begin the day by offering Morning Prayer to God and end the day by offering Evening Prayer, our experience of time is conformed to the true meaning of time; time begins and ends “in Christ.”
This is where most Christians get off track and fall back into the world’s experience of time. We often allow the urgencies of the world to supplant our prayer. We say, “I don’t have time to set aside for prayer.” This is a lie we tell ourselves to justify our unwillingness to reorient our time around the kingdom. Rather than beginning our time in Christ in prayer, we run immediately into the demands of the day; the 24/7 world, where behavior is determined by economics, pleasure, convenience—or simply by our own anxiety and lack of trust (cf. Matt. 6:24f.). Without the grace of God that comes to us through habitual prayer, the world will suck us back into its experience of time.
This is where the primary spiritual battle is fought. The first temptation is not the temptation to sin per se. The first temptation is to be pulled away from our prayer. Once we are separated from our prayer, from our habitual experience of union with God, sin will be the natural fruit. Sin here may not be a flagrant violation of the commandments; sin may be that subtle attitude of anxious hurriedness that cause us to miss the image of Christ in the people we encounter each day (Matt. 25:40); or it may be the pursuit of a merely economic goal that causes us to make subtle compromises. Each individual thing may seem small, but living in the world’s time has a cumulative impact that creates a growing distance from God. And it drains us of the joy and peace that come from the experience of God’s kingdom.
The temptation to abandon our prayer is real and perpetual. The Tempter and others tell us that we are being lazy and non-productive to simply spend our time with Jesus (See Luke 10:38-42). The tempter and the world offer us things that seem easier and promise to make us feel better right now. When we yield to the temptation and return to the time of the world, we end up perpetually pursuing immediate relief from our discomfort—and we end up growing in anxiety and despair. We increasingly realize that the world and its time cannot and will not give us what they promise, but they will keep promising and will keep us on the treadmill as long as we are willing to stay on it.
This why the Advent message—"Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand"—must be applied to our habits. It must not be treated merely as a seasonal moment of excitement. We can only be prepared for the coming of Christ by living in his presence each day—keeping our lamps perpetually burning (see Matt. 25). This requires a commitment to continually reorient our time towards the fulfillment and expectation of the kingdom and away from the anxiety of the world. As Philippians says,
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:6-7).