What time is it?
[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 4:11).
Time is an intimate stranger. Saint Augustine once said, “If you ask me ‘what time is it?’ I know.'“ “If you ask me’ what is time?’ I don’t know.” We are the only creatures to know consciousness. Without consciousness there is no awareness of self; without consciousness there are no memories and no awareness of time. Since nothing created before us was aware of the passage of time, in a sense, time started with us and all the ages before our arrival therefore passed in no time at all. What time is it? It’s time to venture into the history of time.
Context: What did the original audience know and understand?
The people of the first century had complex ideas about time and dimensions. For nearly half a millennia prior, Greek philosophers wrestled with conversation and conversation about conversation. Socrates created his method of dialogue emphasizing the importance of asking questions and defining terms. Because of their efforts, New Testament Greek is nimble and capable of communicating nuances in thought. The concept of time is understood in four different ways:
Chronos is chronological time, the measured passage of moments akin to the rhythmic ticking of a clock.
Kairos signifies critical time with purpose, those occasions when the divine intervenes in our lives. It’s often represented in scripture by phrases such as, “in the fullness of time,” or “the right, proper, favorable time.”
Aion encapsulates the concept of an eternal timeline or age and underscores the infinite expanse of time. For instance when Jesus is asked about his coming ( Matthew 24:36), he responds “No one knows the day or hour” (aion).
Atomo is the smallest indivisible unit of time or the ‘now.’ Paul (1 Corinthians 15:52) invokes this term to highlight the instantaneous nature of Christ's coming, which will transpire "in a flash (atomo), in the twinkling of an eye." For an interesting metaphor on time see: Stitches in Eternity: God’s Tailoring of Time.
There are chronos/kairos distinctions associated with dimensions. (2 Corinthians 4:18). The visible realm operates according to chronos, the simple passage of time. But the invisible realm, in which God resides, operates according to kairos, the ordering of reality according to divine purposes. Chronos is the time of physics, and physics has only been around as long as the cosmos. But kairos is God’s time, and God has been around forever. These two times are not utterly separate. When the visible and invisible realms intersect, kairos becomes evident within chronos. The creation of the world (Genesis 1&2) and the incarnation of Jesus are the preeminent instances of this intersection. In recognition of this reality, the Eastern Orthodox Church historically begins its liturgy with the deacon calling to the congregation, “It is time [kairos] for the Lord to act,” signifying that in worship heaven and earth intersect.
Historical Progression: Time began with God. Genesis describes the creation of the world occurring in six sequential days. We don’t know if each day was only 24 hours or perhaps longer, because the ancient Hebrew word for day, yom, can also denote a long period of time. Before English translations were available, disagreements over the length of the Genesis days did not exist. The majority of early Church fathers explicitly taught that the Genesis days were extended time periods, something like a thousand years per yom. In the midst of ongoing dialogue, Peter’s admonition is appropriate, “Do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8).
We know little about the details of timekeeping in prehistoric eras, but wherever we turn up records and artifacts, we usually discover that in every culture, some people were preoccupied with measuring and recording the passage of time. At the edge of recorded history it was the Sumerian astronomers and mathematicians in Mesopotamia (4100-1750 BC) who first systematically divided the passage of time. Based on their observations, they essentially invented time, dividing the day into 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness, and then further dividing each hour into 60 minutes and each minute into 60 seconds. They also created the first calendar, using a solar year consisting of 360 days. Six-thousand years later we still use their system for measuring the passage of time.
Greek philosophers intently considered time. Parmenides suggested the past and future are illusions because the universe is timeless and unchanging. Heraclitus posited an endless process of creation, destruction and change. Aristotle believed time is rooted in motion and is meaningful only with respect to events embedded in its flow. His predecessor, Plato, observed that time is a reflection of the rotation of heavenly spheres. The Stoics described time as cyclical. In contrast, Hebrew thought developed the concept of linear time. In summation, there are basically three theories of time: 1) realist, 2) relational and 3) idealist.
As science continues to pursue the what, how, where and when of time, we struggle to know how to be alive in time. American physicist Nick Herbert observes, “we humans exist in ‘a King Midas-like predicament’, unable to ever feel the true texture of reality because everything we touch turns, in that moment of our touching it, into solid matter.” This incongruency is sensed in moments of dejavu. We pursue life, seldom satisfied, always in a hurry to be where we are not, as if we own time. We forget we are temporary tenants. Our lives are bookended by an eternity beyond the constraints of time. Before the creation of the world we were in the mind of God (Ephesians 1:4) He gifted each person, in the ribbon of time, to a mother’s womb (Psalm 139: 13-16). As Charles Dickens mused, “It is no small thing, when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.” A lifespan is but a mist. Inevitably we come to the end of ourselves (Psalm 39:4). Did you see the unseen along the way? God determined the when and where of each lifetime (Acts 17: 26 & 27) and promised to make everything beautiful in his time (Ecclesiastes 3:11). He placed eternity in every human heart, and compels us to seek the divine. He is not hidden. God, a timeless reality, entered our time-bound history as an artist would enter his own painting. In the fullness of time God sent his Son. The incarnation of Jesus is the supreme act of God’s self-revelation which transcends time; a singularity— retroactive (in the past) and proactive (in the future). In Christ there is abundant life (John 10:10). Because he lives we can fully live. His eternal being sustains us throughout the reaches of time. This paradigm shift should cause us to see ourselves differently. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in you” (Saint Augustine).
Conclusion: We are time-travelers. Each year as the world sprints around the sun, we hurtle through space at the speed of 1000 miles per hour. Yet, God never fails to meet us wherever we are on the continuum of time. We are intimately known to him. He speaks in our passions and whispers in our longings. He enters our sorrows and soothes our deepest heartaches. The moment we bow in prayer we enter God’s time, that intersection between heaven and earth, when the finite reaches out for and is embraced by the infinite. In the merging, before a word leaves our lips, God already heard and answered our petitions (Isaiah 65:24), according to his will. The sacred moments we inhabit communing with God tether us to eternity where there is no ticking clock. In the unseen we see what it means to be alive apart from the plodding sequence of time. We are inexorably drawn to our eternal home which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began (Titus 1:2). “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us” (J.R.R. Tolkien).
Sources: The End of Christianity, William A Dembski; The Genesis Debate, Norman Geiser, et al; Wisdom of the Ancients, Neil Oliver; https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stitches-eternity-gods-tailoring-time-chronos-kairos-aion-gutnik ; https://pages.uoregon.edu/jschombe/cosmo/lectures/lec09.html