By Pastor Kevin Barnhart
Spring Grove Evangelical Free
Has one minute ever felt like an eternity to you? The feeling of every single foot fall on that last minute or mile of your marathon, the last minute of your workday, the last push before the baby is born. Or perhaps you like I have felt the weighty measure of minutes while sitting vigil next to a loved one taking their very last ragged breaths; caught between the prayers for the minutes to end and the desperate wish that the end did not ever have to come. Time is a funny thing. Sometimes we want more, sometimes we want less; but our ultimate measurements of time seem entirely arbitrary, and earth bound. We measure time in years, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, but ultimately time is measured by how it feels to us deep in our soul. Scripture says that one day is like a thousand years to our Father in Heaven.
It has been over two thousand years ago that Jesus first came. That first Christmas when all of heaven released their King to a corrupt and broken world; all of heaven knew the end that was to come. If we were able to peer into the hearts of angels, into the massagers of this great news – I wonder from Heaven’s vantage point did time stand still – did they want that day to come or did all of heaven weep under the weight of that fateful and ultimately fatal mission! Of course, all of heaven knows something that I am convinced so many of us today don’t. A deep understanding that Christ the King would be scorned, denied, ridiculed and that the greatest gift of all time would be utterly rejected onto the cross. Oh, it is true, some of us would eventually rejoice and fall to our knew before this gift of Christ our King, but many of us in today’s world remain indifferent, lost, or even vindictive toward Christ. Of all the things in the world to cause dissention, who knew it would be a baby boy born a manger. Who knew? Heaven knew, God knew, Christ knew, and he came into this space and time anyway. Into this broken weary world he came, he comes, and he will come again.
As we rush about this Christmas season, as we make time for all kinds of things of import: cookies, cleaning, decorating, cards, friends, family, shopping, celebrating – I wonder, will we have time for Him? Might I be bold in suggesting we make more time than a simple hour on Christmas morning for the obligatory worship service or frankly above and beyond any obligatory amount of time we would causally set aside for Christ. Might I dream for the kind of space and time that seeps so deeply and desperately into our hearts that Christmas radically becomes Christ. Just imagine it! What if instead of a long laundry list of stuff we need to do or buy this advent to prepare for Christmas what if our minutes, hours, moments, and our whole heart filled up with a desperate longing for one more minute with Him, wanting one more hour, one more moment to be in the presence of our Savior. What if this Christmas was about wanting more time with the One who loves you, died for you, and lives for you…
It seems like forever ago that first Christmas came, and nevertheless we celebrate what was, we feel to our toes the truths that are, but soon, hopefully very soon, His time will come again.
Then there will be room for nothing else – for every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Why wait? Make time for him this advent season!
Merry Advent,
Pastor Kevin
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