Now God is eternal, and therefore He is outside of time. It would sure be nice if it were the same way for us, but it's not. God has see fit to place us in time, and so rather than trying to ignore that, it's our job as Christians to take this reality and transform it.
Until recently, my perspective on time, while not bad, definitely didn't grasp the whole picture. I thought that consecrating my time to God meant being a good steward of the time He had given me; I thought it meant using my time in ways that were not dishonoring to Him.
While both of these things are truly excellent, the consecration of time goes deeper than that. Over the next few weeks, I'd like to examine more closely the various rhythms of time and look at a few ways in which we (high-school girls with busy schedules) can consecrate our time to God. If you're reading any one of the posts and have suggestions, from your own personal or family experience or from inspiring books you've read (which definitely includes the Bible!), please feel free to comment and share.
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One characteristic of life is change. Time is a way of marking change. At 7:30 a.m, the sun rises. At 5 p.m, it sets. In 1997, Ellen Friesen was a cute and chubby baby. In 2014, she's definitely not.
Another characteristic of life is recurrence. While our lives are always changing, there are some things that remain steadfast. One of the primary and most faithful of recurring things is God's love for us. Recurrence includes patterns: patterns in salvation history down to patterns in our own weekly schedules. The rhythms of time mark this recurrence.
When we, as Christians, consecrate time, it means taking both sides into account. It means accepting the change that comes with time, but also using the recurrence marked by time as a way to commemorate the faithfulness of God's love. It means recognizing that the temporal order is transient, but at the same time clinging to an unchanging eternal order.
We measure time in several ways. Over the next few weeks, I'd like to look more closely at how the patterns present in the year, the week and the day can become ways of faithfully allowing God's grace to penetrate into our lives.
We measure time in several ways. Over the next few weeks, I'd like to look more closely at how the patterns present in the year, the week and the day can become ways of faithfully allowing God's grace to penetrate into our lives.
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Using the year as a way of drawing closer to God is a concept that was precious to the hearts of His people Israel under the Old Covenant.
In the 12th chapter of Exodus, God commands Moses concerning the Passover: the Israelites are to kill unblemished lambs, smear the blood on their door posts, then roast the lamb with bitter herbs and eat it standing up. God will save the first-born sons of those who obey His commandment. And so it happened.
But the interesting thing was, it wasn't just a one-time thing, over with and forgotten. The Israelite people were to continue celebrating the Passover, even once the actual event was technically concluded and even once those who had actually experienced it were dead:
"You shall observe this rite as an ordinance for you and for your sons for ever...you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?' you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of the LORD's passover, for He passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when He slew the Egyptians but spared our houses.'" ~Exodus 12:24-27, emphasis mine
Every year was a new year: births, deaths, marriages, change. But through the Passover (and other feasts kept by the Israelites), God's people were able to recall the steadfast love of God and experience His constancy, even in the midst of that change.
Now we're living under the New Covenant, so things are a tad bit different. (Well, maybe more than a tad.) But although the practice of using the rhythms of the year to draw nearer to God doesn't look the same for Christians, a similar principle remains: the year becomes a way of reliving salvific history.
Most Christians apply this principle to parts of their year. Christmas is a day to recall the scandal of the Incarnation, the utter honor of God becoming humble man that man might be lifted up to God. On Easter, we joyfully recall the Resurrection and all of its beautiful significance. (I want to emphasize that simply remembering what happened is not enough: we recall these times in order to cultivate in our hearts the desire to live the reality of what God has done for us.)
But what about Lent and its accompanying sorrow for sin? What about Advent, a quiet period of preparation? What about the Annunciation, when we resolve to repeat Mary's "Let it be done to me according to Thy word" in our own lives? What about Pentecost, when we celebrate the beginning of the Church and the oft-neglected Holy Spirit? What about Epiphany, when in commemorating the journey of the wise men we contemplate in our own lives how far we're willing to go to find Christ and the riches of the gifts we're willing to give him once we do?
There's so much more to remember of Christ's work in the lives of His people than just Christmas and Easter (although those are arguably among the most important), but how often do we neglect the precious gift of the year by treating all the seasons alike?
Unfortunately I don't have the space to go into depth on all the different seasons of the Church (and you would probably get sick of me if I did), but next week I'm going to take the season of the year we're entering right now, Advent, and offer some suggestions of how one could use the season of Advent to draw closer to God.
At other times of the year, contemplate the spirit of the season and ask God to show you how He would have you commemorate it. As long as you're in accord with the commandments of God and respectful of the season (i.e., rejoicing profusely isn't exactly a Lenten thing), there's not a "wrong" way to do it. Different people are at different points; just ask God and older/wiser Christians you respect for guidance.
In the 12th chapter of Exodus, God commands Moses concerning the Passover: the Israelites are to kill unblemished lambs, smear the blood on their door posts, then roast the lamb with bitter herbs and eat it standing up. God will save the first-born sons of those who obey His commandment. And so it happened.
But the interesting thing was, it wasn't just a one-time thing, over with and forgotten. The Israelite people were to continue celebrating the Passover, even once the actual event was technically concluded and even once those who had actually experienced it were dead:
"You shall observe this rite as an ordinance for you and for your sons for ever...you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?' you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of the LORD's passover, for He passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when He slew the Egyptians but spared our houses.'" ~Exodus 12:24-27, emphasis mine
Every year was a new year: births, deaths, marriages, change. But through the Passover (and other feasts kept by the Israelites), God's people were able to recall the steadfast love of God and experience His constancy, even in the midst of that change.
Now we're living under the New Covenant, so things are a tad bit different. (Well, maybe more than a tad.) But although the practice of using the rhythms of the year to draw nearer to God doesn't look the same for Christians, a similar principle remains: the year becomes a way of reliving salvific history.
Most Christians apply this principle to parts of their year. Christmas is a day to recall the scandal of the Incarnation, the utter honor of God becoming humble man that man might be lifted up to God. On Easter, we joyfully recall the Resurrection and all of its beautiful significance. (I want to emphasize that simply remembering what happened is not enough: we recall these times in order to cultivate in our hearts the desire to live the reality of what God has done for us.)
But what about Lent and its accompanying sorrow for sin? What about Advent, a quiet period of preparation? What about the Annunciation, when we resolve to repeat Mary's "Let it be done to me according to Thy word" in our own lives? What about Pentecost, when we celebrate the beginning of the Church and the oft-neglected Holy Spirit? What about Epiphany, when in commemorating the journey of the wise men we contemplate in our own lives how far we're willing to go to find Christ and the riches of the gifts we're willing to give him once we do?
There's so much more to remember of Christ's work in the lives of His people than just Christmas and Easter (although those are arguably among the most important), but how often do we neglect the precious gift of the year by treating all the seasons alike?
Unfortunately I don't have the space to go into depth on all the different seasons of the Church (and you would probably get sick of me if I did), but next week I'm going to take the season of the year we're entering right now, Advent, and offer some suggestions of how one could use the season of Advent to draw closer to God.
At other times of the year, contemplate the spirit of the season and ask God to show you how He would have you commemorate it. As long as you're in accord with the commandments of God and respectful of the season (i.e., rejoicing profusely isn't exactly a Lenten thing), there's not a "wrong" way to do it. Different people are at different points; just ask God and older/wiser Christians you respect for guidance.
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