If you look at the world around us it almost seems like the calendar has been set aside and regardless of the actual date we now live in Christmas time.

But then you come here to church and we are doing something different, we are following a different calendar and a different time. 

Here in the church we living out a very unique and special time.  A time that is at once easy to understand and hard to comprehend, a time that refuses to conform to clock or calendar…         a time, a season of history, present and future rolled into one.  A time of Kairos.

There were in ancient Greece two words for time.  One being the calendar and clock style of time one that can be measured, traced and predicted. 

This was called Chronos…as in chronometer…as in a watch.

The second word was Kairos which had less to do with the earth going round the sun and measurable time and more to do with opportune and subjective time. Kairos is those moments where time stands still and opportunities come. 

Within the bible the word Kairos is used to mean God’s time.  All those moments in the bible when the prophets speak of ‘the time to come’ and ‘in the Days of the Lord’.   They don’t mean Nov.27th, 2022, but rather they highlight that point when the time is ripe and things promised come to pass. 

In the society around us people are counting the days until Christmas…Chronos…

jumping ahead to Dec 25th.  So, that every day can be the 25th…chocolate will be eaten, carols sung and presents received.

We in the church have set time apart as well, but not in order to draw out the joys and events of any particular day.. rather in prayerful anticipation of an unknown day.

In advent, we are not simply counting down till Christmas, rather we are preparing ourselves to remember the miracle of Christ’s birth…and especially, this is where the concept of Kairos comes in…we are simultaneously preparing for Christ’s coming again.

We are recalling the blessings of the past, preparing in the present and anticipating Christ’s future return…all at once. 

This Kairos time…this sacred time, outside of the day to day and passing minutes, is a time of opportunity. 

A time ripe with God’s promise.  A time when we recall the many blessings God has given and wait…with baited breath for the fulfilment of promises remembered today.

Advent, as our candle lighting reminded us is a time of waiting…not for a day…not even for the 25th, rather waiting for the day to come when Christ finishes what was begun long before he entered the stable.

This was the vision of Isaiah.   Not simply that there would no longer be war, but that the desire for war would be gone.  That the energy and passion that nations spent in brokenness, in destruction and in pain would be transformed.  Swords were not simply to be discarded and left to waste and rot, but rather instruments of hurt would be transformed into instruments of healing.

It sounds fantastic, but the question that has always been asked is when?

When will this vision come to pass?  When will the swords of this world be beaten into ploughshares and instruments of healing rather than hurt?  When, in this broken and painful world, will reconciliation and transformation take place?

The answer could very well be never…and it could be now.

Perhaps if we are looking at Chronos time…as in…tell me a date! Tell me an hour on which this will occur!  Perhaps we will never be told…after all we hear in the Gospel that about that day and hour no one knows.  Only the Father… not even Christ. 

So, when it comes to marking your calendars…no such luck.  All we know is that if we wait around…then, in time, those days will come when the vision is fulfilled and all those who have waited will all be caught by surprise.

Those in the midst of enjoying themselves, eating and drinking.  Those who are occupied by family matters and those who are busy with work…punching the clocks and waiting for Friday.  They will all be caught by surprise.

            But we needn’t be for Matthew’s gospel tells us to stay awake…for we don’t know when that day will come, but it will come… like a thief in the night.

The day of God’s redemption, the day of reconciliation, the day when wrongs are made right…will come… but we don’t know the day or the hour.   Yet, if you did…we read…if you knew when the thief would come, would you not be prepared? Would you not have stayed awake?

Chronos and Kairos. 

If the home owner had known the hour and minute when that thief would arrive… then she could have set her alarm for quarter to and called up the police.  There will be a break in at midnight precisely please be here. 

However, we are told that we don’t know the day or hour…chronos time does not apply.  This is advent, Kairos time.  The time to seize the opportunities that present themselves.   To stay awake, to be ready for whatever happens and seize any and all opportunities that present themselves. Kairos time. 

That is the theme of advent…be awake!  Seize the moment! Live in Kairos time. 

Our reading from Romans emphasizes this point.  We read… you know what time it is … it is now the moment!  Forget the date…how many sleeps till Christmas…forget chocolates behind paper doors.  The moment God gives is now. 

For the time of advent is a time when we wait for God’s coming again.  But not passively, actively.  The vision of Isaiah said that we would learn from God, that God would teach us and that we would walk in God’s way and go forth with instruction. 

God knows what we should do, and God has told us.  We are sent out, sent forth, to live in that time of waiting.  That advent time between the past of Christ’s coming as humanity and the future of God coming to humanity…Advent is knowing that where we are now is an opportunity. 

Advent is Kairos time, the time to be awake and vigilant so that we can see where those God moments lie.  So that we can see God’s kingdom among us and help it thrive. 

The time has come, the time is now.  To turn hate to love, pain to healing, swords to ploughs, and be a part of God’s plan to teach humanity to love so thoroughly that they forget how to war.

We don’t know the day or hour that Christ will return, and we cannot spend our time reveling in nostalgia over Christmas past.  Christ came that we might have life and that abundantly.  Not just some of us, but all. 

This advent we are called, in a world that seems to make more and more swords, not to hide ourselves in Chronos time…counting down to Christmas and the feast and celebration it brings, but rather to live in Kairos.  Helping everyone to have the opportunity to celebrate the miracle that Christ enacted ….each day, each moment. 

The church has to celebrate differently…because we don’t live exclusively by the calendar and chronological time.  We live a life in a different time. 

When Christmas and Good Friday are always a part of how we live. 

Where Easter is celebrated each Sunday we take Eucharist. 

Where God’s time is sought after and lived into. 

Advent is a time of visioning God’s Kingdom and preparing for it’s coming. 

It is time…as Isaiah tells so long ago…and tells us know… to walk in the light of the Lord.

amen