New Year’s Sermon

INTRODUCTION
We often have a problem with time. We get used to things the way they are, and we want them to stay that way. We are nostalgic for what seems a happier time of our lives. Living in time means living in uncertainty about what the next year, or the next minute, will bring; and we crave certainty. How do we live well in a world where “there’s a time for this” and “a time for that”?

THE TEXT
“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted . . . .” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11).

GOOD TIMES
On the first day of the creation week, God created light, separated light and darkness, and set them up in an alternating series (Genesis 1:3-5). On the fourth day of creation, He set lights in the sky to rule the day and night, and to mark out the seasons of the year (Genesis 1:14-19). When He had finished creating these markers of time, He pronounced them “good” (Genesis 1:18). In short, time is fundamentally not a “problem” or a frustrating “restraint.” Time is a good creation of God; time is a gift.

How is time good? There is much to say here, but let me highlight two related aspects of this. First, time enables the creation to reflect the life and glory of the Trinity. God transcends time, but the movement and “dance” of the Triune life is the uncreated ground of time. Father, Son, and Spirit are an eternal polyphony, an eternal fugue. And the temporality of the creation is necessary if God is going to transpose that uncreated music into the life of the creation. Revealing Triune glory takes time; the creation must be able to keep time. Second, time and change are necessary for us to achieve what God intends for humanity. God created Adam sinless, but yet immature. He was naked, like a baby, and was to mature into fuller and fuller God-likeness. That maturation is what the Bible is all about, and that too takes time.

TIME FOR THIS, TIME FOR THAT
Solomon knew that living in time means living with change, with ever-new situations. One moment, it’s time to plant; but soon it will be time to harvest. And part of Solomon’s point is that these times are not under our control. We can’t determine the time of birth, or even the time of death. God, however, is in control, and makes everything “fitting” or “beautiful” in its time (v. 11). The accent in the passage is on what God does in the various times that He brings (vv. 10, 11, 14). God sends along times for silence, and then times for speech, times to mourn and then times to dance. We are called to be wise in responding appropriately to His works.

CONCLUSION
How do we live in a world of constant change, continual death and resurrection, where one year ends and another begins? We cannot live well if we need to control time ourselves, because we cannot control time. We can live well only through faith, only by trusting in a God who created time, all time, and pronounced it good.