For the past month at our house, a large blue construction paper calendar has resided on our refrigerator. It is hand-drawn in white crayon, and it counts down the days until a certain child's birthday in November. Every day I am asked, "What day is it today?" and my answer leads to careful filling in of the complex boxes and charts on that refrigerator calendar. Nearly every day, too, I am asked, "Can we make my birthday piñata today?"

 

She is eager to prepare for her birthday, but of course there are many days between now and then, many other days that also require preparation. So, my answer has always been, "Not quite yet. Today we need to do ___________" for whatever day it is that tomorrow will bring. But I know that one day soon, it will indeed be time to make the piñata. 

 

This is all a great opportunity for she and I to reflect on time and on the truth of today's first scripture (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11)... there are times for all kinds of things. The more experienced we are in tasks, the more aware we are of the time activities take and when the best time is to "plant" or "harvest" and to make the birthday piñatas.

 

Perhaps the most important verse in today's first passage is the very last one, the one that proclaims that God has "put the timeless" into our hearts. Why? I think it is so that we can encounter God who is timeless, even as we don't even know "from beginning to end, what God has done."

 

As Christians, we believe that God who is timeless sent Jesus to be with us in time, at just the right time. God sent him so that we might, indeed, encounter timelessness, and have friendship with God, even though we are people who are mostly bound by time and caught up in activities that need to be done at just the right time. Today's gospel (Luke 9:18-22) shows Jesus giving the disciples hints at who he is, hints about the great gift God has made to us in Jesus Christ. But they are hints that must have been hard to hear or comprehend: how can Jesus be the Christ of God and also be delivered up on the third day to death? How can this great gift die, and what does it mean to say that Jesus, who is God, died?

 

Of course, we know the real ending: that Jesus dies, but rises from the dead, and that makes all the difference in our understanding of time and death. Jesus' resurrection puts into perspective for us the great love God has us, and the great desire God has for a relationship with us.

 

Today's scriptures remind us that life is not only about knowing when the proper time is to do things, but also about remembering the timeless - eternity, stretching beyond any of our abilities to understand what eternity quite means, but always calling us to relationship with God and God's timelessness.

 

And yet, even without understanding it, sometimes we do experience moments of timelessness in everyday life, I think. It's one of the many ways I encounter Jesus every day. Meditation and keeping the Sabbath are two daily and weekly ways I open myself to encountering timelessness. But sometimes I experience it when I'm hanging out at the playground with my kids and just enjoying that moment, not thinking of all the chores there are to do. 

 

Today, let us pray to encounter moments of timelessness, times when we might encounter the living God.

 

- Jana M. Bennett