Tempus Fugit

I run on Cuban Time. If all the activities I had to go to were scheduled half an hour later in the day, I would be early for everything! Then again, I might end up arriving a half-hour later anyways (one should be consistent, you know).

“Real” time runs at a different pace than my internal clock. Have you ever tried to count sixty seconds inside your head? I’ve tried when attempting to only rest a minute between workout sets in the gym. This always yields varying results, so I “count on” my watch (or iPod timer) to tell me when I’m due for my next set.

For me, this weird sense of time also extended to my early understanding of history. Don’t blame Mrs. Murphy (my beloved kindergarten teacher), but as I watched the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan, I was surprised to find out that he was NOT our country’s THIRD president (after George Washington and Abraham Lincoln). People seem to pay more attention to the bigger events in our history, which sometimes serves to compress time.

One example is that I thought for years that Jesus had a REALLY short life. You celebrate His birth in December, and then around three to four months later, you jump into talking about His death (as an adult) on a cross and subsequent resurrection.

As I grew older, I came to understand that Jesus also grew up. He went through childhood (and adolescence!) and grew into maturity. He taught us how to live trusting in Him and suffered and died for our sins. He proved Whom He claimed to be by conquering death, and then returned to heaven to rejoin God His Father.

One day He will return to call His own.

In His time.

God, you see, is not bound by time as we are, and yet God the Son entered time and enveloped Himself with living breathing flesh. And this is just one of the reasons why God the Son is so amazing. He chose to give up His privilege and position to meet us face to face. To literally point the Way to Life.

The story has often been told of a man who decided to stay home on a wintery Christmas Eve instead of attending a Christmas Mass with his family at their local church. He was not a bad man; he just didn’t understand all the hoopla about the incarnation. “Why did God have to become a man?” he mused to himself as his family left the house singing carols.

As he reclined by the fireplace reading a book, he was startled to hear tapping on the window. He got up and cautiously approached where the noise came from, but saw no one.

Just a wintry blanket of snow across his property.

Suddenly, a tiny bird rammed into the window. That’s what was making the noise. The bird must have been desperately cold, and was seeking refuge in his warm house. Out in the fading light, the man saw other birds huddled in the cold, and his heart became tender.

He decided to open up his barn to keep the birds from freezing to death.

Bundling up, he walked outside, opened the barn door and tried to shoo the birds in. But all his efforts only served to terrify them and they scattered as he approached. They would then weakly head back to the window.

“If only,” the man thought, “I could become like a bird, they wouldn’t be frightened and I could tell them how to get in the warm barn.”

At that moment, the church bell sounded, and he finally understood.

The reason I believe that Jesus is the only hope of this world is because I believe His claim that He was the Son of God. He not only came to show the Way, but rising from the grave proved His mastery over death and disconnection.

While God the Father created us, God the Son redeemed us.

Power to change lives comes through the Third Person of God, the Holy Spirit.

Joe

Related Verses
John 1:1-18
In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

God sent a man, John the Baptist, to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

John testified about him when he shouted to the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’ ”

From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. But the one and only Son is himself God and is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.

Colossians 1:13-23
For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.

He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.

Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it.

NLTse