Telling Time – Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr – December 24, 2009

What time is it? Can anyone really answer that question? The problem is every time you answer that question, by the time you have answered it, more time has passed. CHECK WATCH AND CHECK TIME. For example, my watch reads…. 7:21 and 4 seconds, no now 7:21 and 5 seconds, 6 seconds, no now its’ 7 seconds…. What time is it? Is there a right answer to that question? I can’t tell you exactly what time it is. But, I can tell you time is ticking like this metronome.

Of all times of year during the Christmas season, we are made most aware that time is ticking. Advertisements say “Avoid the Christmas rush and shop now!” So we rush to the mall after Thanksgiving, along with 2,000,000 other people. “Only 13 more shopping days until Christmas!” has morphed into “Only 13 more days until Christmas!” because now every single day is a shopping day – 24/7.

After the major weekend blizzard that those south of us from Washington to Boston received on Monday on the Today show the reporter said that although the cities were paralyzed people stayed home and shopped on line. She said that 240,000 were buying on line every minute. It’s been 3 minutes since I last checked the time (it’s now 7:24…)that would have been 720,000 purchases on line. What time is it? Time is ticking. Time is money.

One thing I do know is that we think we don’t have enough time, so we are always trying to maximize our time. One obsessive compulsive newspaper writer once suggested we note all our seasonal goals on a super organized Christmas checklist. We are suppose to systematize gift preparation in a “home wrapping center,” and implement production line techniques in order to maximize efficiency.

There are other time saving things we do at Christmas in our frenzied rush for time and more time. One man announced, “We yanked the tree out of the box and then plugged it right into the wall! That sucker was pre-decorated with colored lights and a bunch of ornaments. It took three minutes tops. None of this three hours and listening to Christmas music nonsense!”

Not to be out done, his friend bragged about how he avoided the pain of thoughtful shopping. “Fifteen gift cards from the web sit. Three clicks of the mouse and a credit card number. In and out, five minutes and I’m done

O.K., who here has things unfinished at home that they ran out of time to do before they came to church.
- Who has presents unwrapped?
- Cooking to do?
- House to clean?
- Decorations to put up?
In fact, some of you are probably calculating right now as I am preaching this sermon how to get everything done fast when you get home…

What time is it? Is not a friendly question. It is accompanies with anxiety with demands, with a list of things that need to get done and are never done in time.

What time is it? More time is passing now. Time is ticking. Time is money Even if you are good with time, like money, you never seem to get entirely on top of it. I myself try to ignore it, I have a clock in my kitchen with all the numbers in a pile on the bottom left hand corner. The big and and little hand point to nothing. On the face of the clock it says, “Whatever.” But, that doesn’t work either because I make sure that clock is set five minutes fast so that Ian and I get out to school on time.

No matter how many ways we try to save time we suffer from a deeply rooted dread of time. Time to us is sarcasm. When compelled to look into its face it opens its jaws and devours everything in its path.

But there is one thing that seems to stand outside of time during the Christmas season that is the crèche. The tableaux of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus in a stable with some animals. I love crèches because it doesn’t seem to care what time it is.

We have a small one here. Have you seen our crèche in the front of the church? It was bought way back when Rev. George Phinny was with the church. It has been stored in Helen MacDermaid’s barn for years, and then in the Coupe’s barn. Then we stored it in the sanctuary at the back for a while. Now we store it in the parking lot.

Past Christmas’s we use display it in the front of the sanctuary. But, this year one of our members cut some Plexiglas and lit it from inside and we have finally put it where it is best, out front. Cars rush by our church, a child turns his head “Mommy I saw baby Jesus!” No time to stop. But, it doesn’t matter cars pass, time passes but Mary, Joseph and Jesus never move, never change.

Who here has a crèche at home? I recommend you getting one.

Certainly things happen to Mary and Joseph and Jesus when the crèche is put on display. Once someone stole the figurines out of our church’s crèche and then the following year the reappeared. Our family has a few footless shepherds at home, the dog wagged his tail one Christmas and brushed them off the table.

Some families have a complete minidrama setting out the manger scene. Here is an actual dispute that one family with three small kids had.
“He had baby Jesus last year.”
“Her camels are all bigger than mine.”
“I can’t believe you put a plastic army guy in with the shepherds.”
The parents thought of solving the problem by giving turns to rearrange the crèche on alternating days. Yet there is still sabotage:
“One of my shepherds is hanging upside down from the ceiling fan. He is going to puke!”
“If Mary ever wants to see Joseph again, she needs to stand back behind the manger where I put her yesterday and promise not to ride the camel.”

But, when all is said and done, no matter the trials and tribulations of storing it, of setting up the display, the crèche will not change year after year and forever: Jesus lays in the manger with his hands outstretched as if to welcome the angels. Mary sits next to him staring in adoration. Joseph stands by and holds a lamp.

There is a very ancient legend about Joseph that at the moment of the birth of Jesus he looked up and saw heaven standing still
- the birds were suspended in flight.
- He looked down and saw workers with their hands in a bucket lying there.
- He saw the animals chewing but they did not chew
- The shepherd had raised his hand to move the sheep along but his hand remained up.
- He saw children dipping into a streaming river to drink but they were not drinking.
- He saw all the facing looking upward

What time is it?

For one moment in time, something new entered time and stopped the ticking of the clock. Eternity moved in and after this time didn’t have to be seconds ticking like empty shells, reminding you of your limited life and futility of getting it all done.

The moment God entered into our time as Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, time was saved and we were saved.

At the top of your bulletins you will see a quote from Thomas Merton:
Christ is born. He is born to us. And, he is born today ….It is not merely another day in the weary round of time. Today, eternity enters into time, and time is caught up into eternity. Today, Christ… enters the world. to reclaim souls who had forgotten their identity… St. Leo says: “Today is a day restoring that which was long lost, a day of bliss unending.”

What time is it? CHECK WATCH AND COUNT SECONDS….Can that question ever be answered without it being immediately wrong as seconds tick by? It cannot be answered in chronological time, in digital watch time, but it can be answered in the fullness of time.

What time it as we light the candles and pass the light of Christ from one to the other. What time is it? It is a moment when eternity kisses our fleeting lives. What time is it? ? It is holy time. It is sacred time. Joseph holds the lamp and looks around and the world stands still. The time is now.