We all live by the clock—time to get up and go to work, to pick up the kids, to attend meetings which should not run overtime. As SBC is an educational institution, we have timetables, and time limits for exams and deadlines for papers. Some games like football are played based on time: two halves of 45 minutes each. In many ways, the clock has become our master and sets the agenda for what we must do, and by when we are to do it.
There is time in Scripture. As ancient Israel was an agrarian economy, they were dependent on the early and late rains to provide much-needed water for their crops. When the rains did not come at the right time, it would mean that a ruined harvest and famine. In the gospels, time was descriptive rather than the means of exercising control over events (see, for example, Mark 15:33). The Christian worldview gives us at least three different ways of viewing time.
Time as space and opportunity
First, the wise author of Ecclesiastes recognises that there is a “time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven” (3:1). In that chapter, the author recognizes that there are different seasons for scattering and gathering, laughing and weeping, and uprooting and planting; indeed, all life’s activities. His wisdom is that in accepting these different times and seasons in life, we will see that indeed God has made everything beautiful in his time (3:11). With this view of time, time is not a hard master, but rather space and opportunity to experience all of life under God.
Time as history and hope
Secondly, we live in a Christian story, where there is a beginning—creation —and an end—new creation. With the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Word made flesh, and his inauguration of the kingdom of God, we now live in the in-between time, already but not yet. The time between the first and second coming of our Lord is the period in which the kingdom has already begun, but it has not yet reached its fullness and completeness.
Unlike other religious worldviews where time is cyclical, the Christian worldview is linear, with a history and a future hope. This means that we do not despair over what is happening, nor resign ourselves to a perpetual loop of history repeating itself. The Christian story is that we will die once and then face our Maker (Heb 9:27). As we live in these tumultuous times, we live with a firm hope of the return of King. And the trust is in this God who is with us through the different seasons of our lives, because he is the one who hold our times in his hands (Ps 31:15).
Time as sacred rest
Thirdly, God created the Sabbath, a sacred day and time. After God created the whole cosmos and all the living creatures, including humanity, on the seventh day, God rested and blessed that day and made it holy (Gen 2:3). He enjoyed what he had created and invites his creation to enjoy it too (Exod 20:8). While Genesis 1 and 2 give us a theology of work, these chapters also give us a theology of the Sabbath.
Jewish scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel, in The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man (1951) says “The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of the Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living.” Thus, our Sabbath should not be a pause for us to marshal our resources to face the following week, but rather a means for us to live differently. Our practice of the Sabbath is that which sets the tone for the rest of the week. As Heschel puts it, “The solution of mankind’s most vexing problem will not be found in renouncing technical civilization, but in attaining some degree of independence of it.” Sabbath could then be a time to unplug from tech, and to plug into nature, or friendships. Sabbath could be the time when we plunge our hands into the soil of our plants or the flour for baking.
As Heschel explicates:
The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.
Seen in this profound way, Sabbath is not a luxury we fit into our schedule, but a necessity for us so that we can live in God-ordained rhythms.
I asked students in my Pastoral Care Group what was “Sabbath rest” for them, and their answer was when they were not bound by the clock. When time was not the master, the day became a Sabbath rest. For a father with a toddler, that meant he could patiently wait for 20 minutes while his son brushes his teeth or stops by every stone and weed on his way to the playground. Others added that while they do enjoy studying and reading, the pressures of deadlines mean that they lose some of that joy. Thus, Sabbaths are times when we can read or study for its own sake. Certainly, Sabbath is leisurely time with family and friends with no agenda.
Although we do live by the clock and have deadlines and commitments which are time-bound, yet, our Christian views of time can make a difference in how we live each day. We can then enjoy the day and carry out our obligations and responsibilities as we recognise the season of life. We will intentionally have a day of Sabbath rest as the Lord has commanded.
So, let us not try to squeeze in many things into our schedules. Give ourselves time and space so we don’t need to rush through our activities. Create adequate buffers in our schedules to allow for delays, waiting, and heavy traffic, so that we are not always running late for our next appointment. Let’s happily waste time in doing that, as we’ll find that we rest from striving. These spaces can give us time to look at the passing clouds or the wind in the leaves, or to wait for the toddler to finish brushing his teeth.
FOR DISCUSSION
- How will you order your daily schedule differently when you are assured that your times are in God’s hands?
- What are some Sabbath practices that you can put in place which will set the tone for the week?
