Digital Time
My mornings are greeted with a number of sights and sounds: the gentle rays of the rising sun filtering through our bedroom curtains; the search by one of our children for that exclusive “other” sock; kitchen noises made by mother preparing breakfast and fixing school lunches; and two clocks!
One clock tells me that it is 6:45 A.M., the other that it is 45 minutes past 6:00, or it is 15 minutes to 7:00. One is a digital clock, the other the traditional kind, with a face and sweeping hands. The digital clock records time only in the now, 6:45 A.M., reflecting on time past only in the split second change of the dial. The other tells the now time, 6:45 A.M. but also gives consideration to time past, as well as time to come, 45 minutes past 6:00, 15 minutes to 7:00. Many moments have gone before, many are yet to come.
The tendency today, in 2014 America, is to be digital. That is, to live in and for the now, with little attention given to the past or to the future. The past seems to have little importance on the now and the future is too uncertain. It is 6:45 A.M., not a minute before or a minute after.
CONSIDER, it is not that we are to fret or worry over time past or time to come. Jesus admonishes us, in His Sermon on the Mount, not to; and yet where we have come and where we are going definitely have something to say as to where we are now. We have made it this far and we will, in like manner, make it even further. The time, 45 past 6:00 and the hours preceding it gives us a deeper appreciation of the God who has been with us, and 15 minutes to 7:00. And the hours ahead remind us that the same God will continue the journey with us.
The writer of Hebrews reflects upon this when he writes, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today, and forever.”
Rev. Wendell Mettey
Written in 1983
Revised 4/10/2014
