Lent: Kairos

  

My pastor on Sunday shared an interesting contrast in words.  The Greeks were bright enough to have two words for the concept of time.  Chronos refers to hours, minutes, seconds; the time I watch click by on the big, round clock across from me. The Greek god Chronos was represented with an hourglass and a scythe.  Symbolically appropriate, I'd say.  I've often felt the sting of the scythe of chronos.

Kairos, in contrast, is the word for "an appointed time," a "supreme moment."  It is the winged god holding the balance of time that has reached its tipping point.  It is the "ripeness" of time spoken of here:

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted…” and so on.

In the first Greek translations of the Bible, each use of the word ‘time’ in the above passage is rendered as kairos, not chronos.

Mark says, “The KAIROS has come, the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:15

I FEEL chronos.  I feel it in the shoulder that won't fully heal because of the sophomoric trick I did while snow tubing in January. I SEE it in the eyes and minds and bodies of my children.  

But I HEAR kairos.  The Holy Spirit speaks to me in the language of kairos.  Throughout the day it says, "Move now.  Speak now.  Listen now.  Give now.  Do now. Rest now."  

It told Esther:  "Now is your moment.  Speak."  It told Gideon, "You, unlikely man; you, man of valor.  This time is for you.  Move now!"  It told Jesus, "The time has come for the cross."

The Bible is drenched with kairos.  So is my life.  As  I listen carefully during this Lenten journey, I hear two sounds:  the unrelenting ticking of chronos and the unmistakable voice of kairos.