‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven’ (Eccl. 3:1)
If there is a time for everything, then it is important to do things at its proper time. All the works of God the Father were done at their perfect time. He sent His Son to the world at the fullness of time. ‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law’ (Gal 4:4). And the coming of Jesus into this world was with ‘a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth’ (Eph 1:10).
Perhaps the most striking comment about Jesus from the common people was the one recorded by Mark. ‘He has done everything well’ (Mk 7:37). It was Jesus’ style of doing things; everything at its proper time.
We claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. But our biggest undoing is that we lack a sense of time. Many of us delay the works needed to procure eternal life under the false impression that the door of Divine Mercy is kept open indefinitely. We often ignore the calls to repent, thinking that tomorrow is always the best time to go for confession. We celebrate life as usual, thinking that death is still too far a thing to be concerned about. We start quarreling about the Holy Eucharist exactly when it is the time to stay closer to the altar.
There are certain people whom the Holy Bible describes as having done the right thing at the right time. ‘He (Joseph) took the child and his mother by night and went to Egypt’ (Mt 2:14). ‘She (Mary) set out and went with haste’ (Lk 1:39) to meet Elizabeth. Joseph and Mary knew that time was of the essence in God’s scheme of things.
Had Joseph of Aramathea and Nicodemus been delayed for a few minutes, the body of Jesus would have been left to eagles, or thrown into the valley of BenHinnom. Their timely intervention to bury Jesus before Sabbath saved the sacred body of Jesus from public humiliation.
Everything has its time. It is wisdom that helps us in discerning it. Judas failed to understand that the Master invited them not for a routine supper, but to be with him at the time Jesus accomplished the greatest act of love. And his failure to know the time of the Lord led him into the darkness outside, immediately after eating the bread.
It was difficult to know the value of a confession when confessionals were open at any time. We lamented about not getting opportunities for confession during the pandemic, but immediately forgot that it can happen anytime in future also.
Do not nurse any misconceptions about time. The Holy Bible calls such persons fools. ’You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ (Lk 12:20). Jesus advises us to interpret the present time sufficiently before we are led to a place from where there is no chance of getting out ‘until we have paid the very last penny’ (Lk 12:54-59).
Our Lord knows the time. That is why he came searching for fruits from the fig tree at the time of harvest. But the fig tree had forgotten that the master’s visit was due. We too forget that our days got extended only because of the intercession of some other person.
Lord’s time may not necessarily coincide with our time. He often comes at odd times. He visits the fig tree even when ‘it is not the season for figs’ (Mk 11:13). Jesus teaches us that the name ‘Christian’ does not fit a person who produces fruits at a fixed time, during its season and only when the environment is favorable.
Jeremiah too laments about his people who lost the sense of time. ‘Even the stork in the heavens knows its times; and the turtledove, swallow, and crane observe the time of their coming; but my people do not know the ordinance of the Lord’ (Jer. 8:7).
We have lost the wisdom to know that it is time to return to the Lord. Perhaps one day we will know it. Let us hope that it happens before ‘the days of trouble come, and the years draw near’ (Eccl 12:1) and we say; ‘I have no pleasure in them’ (Eccl 12:1). When ‘the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened’ (Eccl 12:2) in our life, do we think that we will be able to utilize the fading rays of the twilight properly?
As our time and God’s time do not match, our only option is to align our time with God’s time. ‘See, now is the acceptable time; see now is the day of salvation’ (2 Cor 6:2). Let us return to the Lord’s barn with the prayer that the light of those souls who are yet to return to the Lord be kept alive until the moment of conversion, for ‘the time is near’ (Rev 22:10). The time when ‘the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy’ (Rev 22:11).
