Clock

Acts 1:7 - He told them, "You don't get to know the time. Timing is the Father's business."

I was talking to a friend last night as he talked about the "state of the nation." He said that America needed a spiritual awakening, and that because of the current government we may see in our lifetime a civil war - a rise in the Conservative party to take back the values of our country. 

I've overheard many conversations like this, and they all had this undertone of a two-sided, good verses evil, "God's taking back the country" sort of philosophy.

This isn't a new idea. In fact, this idea has been mainstream for thousands of years, going all the way back to Israel. 

A guy named Daniel once said, "The man dressed in linen, who straddled the river, raised both hands to the skies. I heard him solemnly swear by the Eternal One that it would be a time, two times, and half a time, that when the oppressor of the holy people was brought down the story would be complete."

Thousands of years after Daniel, another guy named Jesus arrived on the scene. He was dressed in linen, and it was written that he appeared at a river - the River Jordan to be exact. This river had tons of historical significance to anyone who paid any attention to the Torah. 

For the people who watched the man Jesus and paid attention to his life, they saw the person whom Daniel was talking about in the scriptures. In their minds, Jesus was the one who was going to bring "the oppressor of the holy people down." 

But, Jesus had something different in mind. He spoke a language that referred back to the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah once said, "Yes, he'll banish death forever. And GOD will wipe the tears from every face. He'll remove every sign of disgrace From his people, wherever they are. Yes! GOD says so!"

For the Jews, Jesus was their own self-fulfilling prophecy - the One who would bring them to power after all their hard work and sacrifice. Finally, after years of not getting their way, they would become the next Rome. They would get to run the show.

This same narrative seems to be underlying the message that my friend shared with me last night. "God wants to overtake them, so we can reclaim our rightful position of power."

For the Jews, time took on a very different connotation than what Jesus had in mind. Time for the Jews meant the ticking clock moving forward to a point of reclaimed power. For Jesus, time was made of a string of moments all leading forward to a point of redemption for all of creation. 

There is often this belief among Christians that God is going to use political means to reclaim something that was originally theirs.

For the apostles whom Jesus was talking to in this instance, there was a concept that needed to be smashed. It had to do with this idea that time was leading to this reclamation of power. Jesus was trying to tell them that the power had already won out, and it looked much different than the power of political force. It was a power that banished death, and redeemed people from the inside out. It was a power that brought hope, and life, and energy, and not another us vs. them power struggle. 

God's redemption is not about a politcal party overtaking another political party. Time isn't about a means to a reclamation of power. It isn't about one day restoring a country back to the origins of its founding fathers. 

God's timing is about unleashing the power of redemption throughout the world and its people. It's about restoring things back to the way God intended them to be, and not the way "founding fathers" intended them to be.