The God’s time

Mark 1: 14 - 15

​14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” He said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Whenever we close a year and start a new year, we have different reflections about the time; we consider the goodness of life or the madness around us, depending on our scope and experiences. We are totally related to the time, and we usually feel like we understand how it works, but we live in continuous stress because we can not control the time, and it only passes by. Then, what exactly is this thing that we call time? How does it work? How can we have control over it? We can have three approaches to meditate on the importance and the implications of the time in our lives.

We usually understand time like something we can measure, or we can handle according to our expectations, but at the end of the story the time looks like something out of our control. The only ones who understand and certainly have control over time are God. The bible says in 2 Peter 3:8: But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

Upon closer examination of Mark 1:15, we can observe a reference to God's understanding of time. It is important to distinguish between κρόνoς, which refers to a chronological span, and καιρός, which signifies an opportune time. In this verse, Mark 1:15 specifically uses the latter term. The phrase "accomplished" is often implied by the term "Πεπλήρωται," suggesting a fitting modern interpretation of "it's time!" This expression alludes to the period of devastation and death that occurred in the decades following 70 AD. Jesus spoke these words when he first began his mission in Galilee. According to the corresponding account in Matthew 4:17, Jesus started preaching about the Kingdom of God at that moment. The central focus of Jesus' mission was the Kingdom, which is evident from the approximately hundred references to it in the four Gospels, with the majority being attributed to Jesus himself. Jesus dedicated more attention to discussing the Kingdom of God in the Bible than to any other topic.

​The phrase "The time is fulfilled" signifies that John the Baptist, who fulfilled the role of "the one crying out in the wilderness" to announce the arrival of the Lord in human form, properly proclaimed and introduced Jesus as the prophesied Messiah mentioned in Isaiah chapter 40. John the Baptist ultimately met his death in prison. As the Lamb of God who atones for the sins of the world, he presented Jesus Christ as the Lord (John 1:29). John's role in fulfilling the prophecy from Isaiah 40 clarified the identity of Jesus Christ: He is both the YHWH of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Testament, who came to establish the promised Kingdom. Other Bible verses, such as Romans 13:11–12 ESV, Hebrews 1:1–2 ESV, 1 Peter 1:20, Galatians 4:4, and Ephesians 1:1,0 also emphasize God's oversight of time. A prime example of God's Kairos can be found in Mark 1:15.

The second thing that I would like to address is the Kronos, the human time, we are going to use the passage in Deut. 32 about the story of Aaron and the Golden Calf. While Moses was up on the mountain receiving God’s laws, the people were getting anxious down on the plain. Moses spent forty days (Exodus 24:18) up on the mountain with God, and by the end of that time, the people were beginning to think Moses had died or left them. The people urged Aaron, their temporary leader, to make gods for them to follow. Since they were accustomed to having visual representations of gods, this was the natural (but sinful) result of their thinking. Aaron took their gold earrings, which they had brought from Egypt, and melted them down to make a golden idol. The idol he crafted for them was a calf, but Aaron maintained the name of the Lord in connection with it (Exodus 32:5). He was merging the pagan practices they were familiar with and the worship of the God they were just beginning to be re-acquainted with. Aaron called the people together and told them that the golden calf was the god who delivered them from Egypt. The people offered sacrifices and then engaged in pagan rituals, including orgies (Exodus 32:25), to worship this new god.

Then, how can we ascertain God's intended timing? We can explore 1 Chronicles 12:32, which recounts the tale of the sons of Issachar who possessed a discernment of the seasons. According to Jewish scholars, the individuals from this tribe were well-versed in astronomy and the physical sciences. The purpose of mentioning this was likely to emphasize that these intelligent individuals were aligned with the military and had pledged their support to David. They possessed a profound understanding of public affairs, the nation's disposition, and the prevailing trends. Their wisdom was evident during this period as they remained faithful to Saul while he was alive, recognizing that it was not yet the appropriate time for David to assume the throne. Furthermore, they could not join David while Abner, who commanded the other tribes surrounding them, was still alive. However, as soon as Abner passed away and they had the opportunity to declare their loyalty, they acknowledged David as their king. These were men of extensive experience who always possessed the insight to discern what needed to be accomplished.
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We must recognize that time is just a structure that only operates under the control of God. We cannot know exactly how time is or how to manage it, but we can live under the Kairos of God, which means under His plans for our lives. We can trust in the God of history who governs everything with His wisdom and mercy. His providence rules the universe, so we can be sure that He knows when the right time is to move on or move back. We need to learn how to listen to God’s will, how to discern when God’s Kairos has come.

We need to take care about the Kronos which is the main source of stress and anxiety, as individual and as society we have biographic time and historical time which are concretes forms through which the time imposes above us, we are part of generations of humans: We live in jails of time, our lives depends primarily on clocks or agendas but at the end of the day the only truth is the eternity which is the place where God wait for us. We are more than packages of time; we are people, with a legacy, with a personal history, who are called to build a legacy and to transform the time in favor of others and in the name of God.

We need to learn how to discern the times’ signs around us, around the history, around the reality, as individual and as structures, we can find that there are a lot of signs of sin and injustice but also, we can identify signs of hope and mercy coming from God through the church and through of people of faith trying to transform the reality.  We need to grow in our discernment skills, we need to improve our senses to see everything happening around us, God’s plan not to stay inactive but to mobilize ourselves in the right directions according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

May the good Lord and His Holy Spirit help us to discern the current time and how we can be pertinent for the new year to live under His will and under his governance; meanwhile, we expect His kingdom to come.