The Time is Now

Ash Wednesday – February 14, 2024

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Psalm 51:1-17
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

The other day one of my sons was talking about time and that some people – mostly physicists – do not think time exists. There is also a group of indigenous people in South America who did not have a concept of time. You may understand that a bit when you think about the incidents in your life when you noticed time. There are those times when worry and dread surround you and you look at the clock thinking how many hours you have waited only to see that minutes had passed by and you think how times drags on. Then there are those joyful moments when you look to the clock and find that hours have passed by and think how the time just flew by. I bring this up because Paul talks about the acceptable time – the time of salvation.

This acceptable time brings up other thoughts and conversations that I have had in the many years in the past. Those discussions usually center around when it is the right time for some important event in a person’s life. Many of those events revolve around family life: When to get married, when to have children, is it the right time to change jobs, or the right time to retire. You know those types of decisions. You have had them yourselves with your family and friends. I have learned in these discussions that, if you use logic to make these decisions, you may never decide to act. I suppose that is in part because change is not something any of us really want. But mostly the fear of the unknown can dominate our decision making process and allows us to convince ourselves to not act.

I suppose that is why Paul brings this up. The Christians who he was writing to in Corinth had many reasons that they did not act as Paul encouraged them to. Life was hard in those times. Christians were being persecuted. They were used to the old way they lived. You know the excuses. You have used some of them and others instead of living up to the call of Jesus. We can convince ourselves that it just is not the right time to proclaim Jesus in word and deed.

Paul did not accept those excuses. In fact he lists all the struggles he and his companions had suffered with the result that even in those struggles they have become stronger and more alive than they had been before. That is the way of the cross. Yes, the cross is heavy and can be a burden. But when you pick it up and start carrying it you find that it gets easier. That is because you will not carry it alone. Jesus who knew no sin, who was first to pick up his cross, helps you carry yours. That is what the Lenten season is all about. First reminding you what Jesus has done for you and then giving you practice at carrying your cross through the works of Lent: Repentance, prayer, fasting, and works of love.