“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:7, 12  

“A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they drew. She would occasionally walk around to see each child’s work. As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was? The girl replied, “I’m drawing God.” The teacher paused and said, “But no one knows what God looks like.” Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, “They will in a minute.”  

“No Time Lost?

Godric is speaking: AILRED, I KNOW hours well enough,” I said. “Stick a twig into the soil and watch the shadow turn. That’s hours. Or take old Wear out there. Let him rise another inch or two, and either we’ll grow gills or shipwreck sure. That’s hours for you. It’s inch by inch and hour by hour to death. It’s hours gone and hours still to go. No puzzle there. A child can count it out. But what is time itself, dear friend? What is the sea where hours float? Am I daft, or is it true there’s no such thing as hours past and other hours still to pass, but all of them instead are all at once and never gone? Is there no time lost that ever was? Is there no time yet to come that’s not here now?” (Buechner, Frederick. Listening to Your Life . HarperOne. Kindle Edition.)

Frederick Buechner’s book Godric retells the life of Godric of Finchale, a twelfth-century English holy man whose projects late in life included that of purifying his moral ambition of pride…Sin, spiritual yearning, rebirth, fierce asceticism. In his book Godric Buechner describes a living battleground where G-d fights it out with the world, the Flesh, and the Devil.

No one has ever seen G-d — well no one except for Moses, and possibly a few others in the Old Testament. But, wouldn’t it be nice to get just a glimpse of G-d? Well, some people believe that when we look into the eyes of the poor, the needy, the “Anawim” of this world, then we are looking into the face of G-d. Anawim is a Hebrew word from the Old Testament which describes the “poor ones” who remained faithful to G-d in times of difficulty. As Christians we are encouraged to see Christ in the faces of everyone we meet.  

Here is another challenge for us as we enter into 2021: if we are serious about beginning the new year with renewed purpose, perhaps now is the time. The Greeks spoke of two kinds of time: Chronos time and Kairos time. Chronos time is the time that passes with each tick of the clock. Kairos is G-d time, time that holds no bounds to the forces of Chronos time. Godric speaks to a truth about time: “Am I daft, or is it true there’s no such thing as hours past and other hours still to pass, but all of them instead are all at once and never gone?”

Kairos time is G-d time, and though we do not know what G-d might look like, we know that time has no hold on us when we enter eternal life. That should compel us to use this time we have, right now, to the glory of G-d – especially through loving acts for our neighbor. We can begin by changing our perspective on our neighbor. Instead of being annoyed with our neighbor who parks his/her car in our parking space, shouldn’t we step outside that anger and see someone who needs that spot more than we do? Instead of being angry at our co-worker who never stops talking, perhaps we can see someone who is lonely and needs someone who honestly will listen to them. Our true challenge in 2021 is to see Christ in the faces of all people – even the annoying ones.  

Pastor Dave