Is it just me, or has the Advent/Christmas season seemed to have come so quickly this year?
I know we hear it all the time, where did the year go? Every year, the time seems to slip by us ever more quickly. How is it possible we are already in December of the year, and I’m still struggling to remember its the year 2025?
I don’t know about you, but for me the days seem to pass faster and faster. There is a science to the perceived increased speed with which the days pass. This is a biological and psychological phenomenon.
“The perceived speed of time passing as you get older is influenced by both biological and psychological factors. Biologically, your brain processes information more slowly as you age, making a given period of time feel shorter because it contains fewer “mental images”. Psychologically, life becomes more routine with fewer novel experiences, which reduces our ability to distinguish one day from the next and can make time seem to “fly by”. A larger percentage of a single year is also a smaller fraction of your total life as you get older, which contributes to the feeling that time is speeding up. “
I’m not sure that explanation helps how I’m feeling. I feel as if the days are passing quicker than I am able to distinguish. My father always told me, “the older you get, the faster time flies.” I feel as if I’m having less and less time to affect change around me, to contribute whatever part I can play in the larger scheme of things. It concerns me when I realize I have more days behind me than ahead of me.
When those thoughts creep into my psyche though, I am also reminded of how precious time actually is. Time is the one commodity which is not affected by anything I can physically do. I can’t throw enough money at time to increase my share of it. I can’t cheat time in any real way, where I end up with a surplus. I can’t dig in my heals and resist the passage of time. Time is the ultimate equalizer among all of us. As it has been said, “Time waits for no one.”
Advent seems to be as good a time as any to take stock of what I have been able to contribute during this past year. Who have I been able to help? Where have I lent my voice/presence/action that has substantially aided the cause of love? How have I interacted with those I cross paths with? Have I been Christ-like in all my relations?
These are good questions for each of us to ask ourselves as the chronometer of our lives tick past exponentially.
In Romans 13:11-12, Paul admonishes the Roman Christ-followers love is above all things, the most important thing we can contribute. He writes…
“Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12 the night is far gone; the day is near. Let us then throw off[a] the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;”
You see, Paul was well aware of the passage of time and how we each have a finite period in which to partner with God in loving all people. I say partner with God, because God’s love is poured into us. Advent is about Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. Love being the crowning achievement of Advent realized. Jesus was born because as John puts it, “God so loved the world.”
Because God loves us, God pours love into us. We have this time thing staring us in the face. We have a finite amount of time to spread the love of God that has been poured into us. What better time than Advent for us to wake up, and start loving with all the reckless abandon we can muster. I know the idea of “Wokeness” has been castigated in political circles recently. I would say God is urging us to wake up. Wake up to the responsibility to love others.
Time is short my friends, and for me it is growing shorter and shorter. I want to be awake to the needs of my neighbors. I want to be awake to the misery I can personally alleviate through thought, word and deed. I want to be awake to the cries of the hungry, the shelter-less, the disenfranchised. May God wake all of us up and make us aware of what time it is!
Your companion on the Way,
Pastor Tom