Matthew 24:42-44
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day God will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at a time when you least expect him. “
Romans 13:11-14
And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.”
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“You will be haunted,” said the Ghost “by Three Spirits.”
Scrooge’s countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost’s had done.
“Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?” he demanded in a faltering voice.
“It is.”
“Then, I think I’d rather not,” said Scrooge.
“Without their visits”, said the Ghost, “you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow when the bell tolls one.”
“Couldn’t I take them all at once, and have it over, Jacob?” hinted Scrooge.
“Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third, upon the the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and see that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us.”
When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm. The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.
It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.
Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.
Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.
Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been when he walked home.
Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say ``Humbug!'' but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
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A couple of years ago, in Japan I accompanied my husband to a lecture at Dokkyo University. I sat in the very back row, and observed several students slip in, slide down in the seats till they were almost sitting on their necks, and proceed to go to sleep. A couple of them realised I was the guest professor’s wife, and attempted to pay attention. It was almost comical watching as students tried to look involved and sleep at the same time. At the end of the class, all but one woke up in time to leave. I managed to gently nudge the one remaining snorer, who leapt to his feet and dashed out. They all missed an excellent lecture on language learning, and of course, never stopped to think they would have to answer a question on the final exam. Oops.
Wake-up calls. An interesting phrase. Hotels give wake-up calls, so we don’t miss important transportation or appointments. We talk about being “given a wake-up call” when something happens to grab our attention.
Paul writes to the church in Rome, giving them a wake-up call. He says to them “The night is far gone, and the day is dawning. So let us put on the armour of light.”
Even in the gospel lesson, Jesus warns his followers to "keep awake"- they wanted a precise time when he would return. "About that day and hour no one knows," Jesus says, "except God.”
Do we know what time it is? Sure - the first thing we do if the sermon goes on too long, or the service passes 12 noon, is look at our watches, and start thinking about all the other things we need to be getting at. Time is this thing that is sliced into twenty-four equal pieces and repeated endlessly every moment of our lives. We have wristwatches and alarm clocks. In this country alone we buy at least a hundred thousand of them each day. We have calendars, Daytimers, electronic timekeepers, every possible way of measuring time you can imagine.
What time is it? Do you want that in microseconds, or nanoseconds- billionths of a second. Now, when races are run at the Olympics, we judge the winners in terms of bits of seconds. We know precisely what time it is.
All of this time that we know so well is chronos time. Chronos time is wristwatch and alarm clock time. Chronos is the time in which we live most of our lives. Chronos times are these buckets of time that we pack with feverish activity in our Daytimers© and time management systems. The kind of time that we feel guilty when we're not doing something. It's the time we try to slow down, yet fall hopelessly behind.
Seconds of aging, of terrorism, of the rattling of sabres north and south of imaginary borders, of children starving, of torture and executions of children and women in whatever country.
Paul and Jesus are not talking about this kind of time. Nor was Dickens when he wrote the story of Scrooge. All three were talking about something called “kairos” time - those moments when God breaks through our Daytimer-driven and organised lives, often to give us a wake-up call.
Scrooge did not recognise that moment. He had spent all his life pushing everything away - and concentrating on amassing physical wealth in physical time, and convincing himself that was sufficient. He didn’t know what else to do and he was, frankly, frightened. He fell exhausted into bed and hoped it would all be nothing more than a crumb of cheese or a bit of underdone potato causing him gastric distress.
It wasn’t. Scrooge was entering that world of Kairos time - being time. He didn’t know that God was reaching for him. Kairos time is time never wasted. When we take moments to reflect on our lives and on the coming of Jesus, we move beyond the normal restrictions of time to God's time. Scrooge's error, and often ours, is that we think spending time in reflection is time wasted.
Earlier in the conversation between Scrooge and Marley, Scrooge seeks to ingratiate himself with the ghost by saying “You were always a good man of business, Jacob.” and Marley wails in agony “Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business!” - and as Scrooge goes to the window he sees many spirits, in agony because they wish to assist in human affairs, to make life better for those who suffer, but it’s too late and they no longer have the capability.
Paul says that we are kairos people, people who walk according to God's schedule, but that some of us have fallen asleep. He throws up the image of light versus darkness, our worst and best locked in combat. “Wake up”, he says, “don't abuse your life or the lives of others. Take the time you are given to make the lives of others better.”
This Advent season allows us to look at time differently. Advent means that even while we tell the story again, and wait for a re-birth, we work to bring about the realm of God now. There is no time to waste.
Sources:
1. “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. Stave One - Marley’s Ghost
c. 1962 by Scholastic Book Services, New York, NY.
2. “What Time is It?” A sermon by Rev. Thomas Hall
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