3-10-14
The Bungee Cord

Hello,

     Yesterday my alarm went off at 6:30, but I knew it was really 5:30.  As I drove down our lane to the main road a bunch of eyes caught my lights and shone in surprised gaze at me, a herd of deer wondering what I was doing coming toward them at this hour.  As I rose over the ridge in my car with the eastern sun rising behind me, a pair of deer hopped onto the road in front of me, and instead of perpendicularly crossing the road, they leisurely took a stroll in the middle of the road in the direction that I was going refusing to get out of my way.  “At this time of the morning,” they seemed to say, “this road is ours!”

     I don’t know how long we have been toying with time, giving an hour to the day in the fall, and stealing one in the spring.  The truth is, and the animals know it, our temporal fiddling is really just an illusion.  No matter what we do with our clocks, each day will always be a few ticks longer than 24 hours.  We play around with time. We try and manage time.  We seek to make the most of time.  But in the end, we cannot create time nor eliminate time.  Time is not really in our hands, rather we are bound in the hands of time.

     But the Bible tells us that when the time was right, God sent his Son to die.  He who not only fills all time and space, but is beyond all time and space, took a solitary place within time and space in order to wrest us from the grip of time and hold us in his hands forever.  So, rather than just tick by as if marking revolutions in a hamster wheel going nowhere, each minute of time is now saturated with the eternal presence of God, giving our deeds and days eternal consequence.  And when time comes to an end, whenever that might be, the one who took hold of us in the midst of time will hold us tight in a timeless bond.  Nothing in all of creation, and time is part of creation, says the book of Romans in the Bible, will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus

     Back in the 1500’s it is said that someone asked Martin Luther what he would do today if he knew that time would end tomorrow.  He is supposed to have said, “I would plant a tree.”  What he meant by that is if every moment if full of eternal grace, something that is worth doing that might last centuries, is worth doing even if it only lasts a second.  Maybe you wouldn’t plant a tree, but maybe you would bake cookies for a friend, speak a word of forgiveness to someone you have hurt, work to fill one child’s hungry stomach with one meal…..

     What would I do today if I knew that time was ending tomorrow?  Well, I think I will stick with Martin Luther’s answer…..plant a tree (figuratively, that is)….but it won’t be at 5:30 in the morning!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger