Attuned to the Times
Jesus was always so certain about God’s timing. He knew what God the Father was calling him to do and he knew when to do it. He was even content to wait if the time had not yet come because he knew that in the eternal scheme of salvation it would all happen in God’s time (which as the Son of God was also his time). “My time has not yet come” is a repeated saying of Jesus in John’s Gospel. One episode that comes to mind is Jesus discussing with his brothers the upcoming Feast of Tabernacles about to take place at Jerusalem.
Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” (John 7: 3-4). Then John explains for our benefit, “For even his own brothers did not believe in him” (John 7:5). So Jesus told them,, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do” (John 7:6).
Is that true of us, anytime will do? If we are eager to act now (to speak our mind, buy that new item, or take that vacation), do we do it now? Is our only thought, “there’s no time like the present”? Or if we are by contrast desiring to procrastinate, do we put it off, whatever it is (restoring a friendship, caring for a neighbor, attending to the honey do list)?
John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus brothers went up to the Feast of Tabernacles celebration without him, but then Jesus did go, after his brothers had left. Only he didn’t go publicly. He went in secret. It wasn’t time for that yet. When it was time, Jesus knew it, John 12:23, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” It had come, and the significance of that time, rings down through the ages, the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Jesus indicates that there is a divine complexity to the times, which begs us to pay more attention to the times. Jesus told the Pharisees and Sadducees, “You say. . . ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times” (Mathew 16:2-3). Jesus invites us to recognize that there is a divine time for us too. The divine time of for Sarah and Abraham’s baby was when Sarah was nine-nine years old. The divine time for Israel’s return from exile was seventy years. The divine time of Paul’s blindness in Damascus after seeing Jesus was three days.
The scriptures are full of encouragement to wait on the Lord, such as Psalm 27:14, “Wait on the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage. Wait on the Lord.” In these Old Testament scriptures the word for wait is also the word for hope and trust.
Can we be servants of the times, like Jesus was, not running headlong with our own timing or lazy with procrastination but attentive to what God is doing in the times we find ourselves in and prayerfully asking God to help us discern when the time is right? Living that way calls for patience. It takes awareness. Most of all it takes faith.
“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage. Wait on the Lord” Psalm 27:1.
In Jesus,
Pastor Mike