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One of the strangest things that happens to us in this pandemic is our confusion over time.  We have to put in some effort to remember what day of the week it is.  We have to pay attention to the time of day or we will not get done what needs getting done. 

Stephanie Pausell writes in “Christian Century” (May 6, 2020, p. 37) magazine that in the book fourteenth century mystical book, “The Could of Unknowing,” the author notes that nothing is more precious than time.  Time is precious because God reaches us in time.  “We should strive to be like the saints, the ’Cloud’ says, who keep account of the time by means of love’” “Keeping time, tending time, and spending time all matter.” 

Sunday anchors our week.  The Sabbath rolls around.  It never fails to come.  It is there waiting for us.  It brackets our week. 

God encounters us in time.  The encounter is love. 

Romans 13:11 says, Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; The Bible has this to say about time…”  Jesus came to us “in the fullness of time.”(Galatians 4:4)  In Ephesians chapter one,  we read, With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. “

Covid 19 has taught us many things.  We have had to learn to shelter in place, to change to very careful hygiene habits, how to get along at home all the time.  We have learned what it means to have hearts that ache for worshiping together and see loved ones we miss terribly.

Our measurement of time has been altered.  We cannot do what we want when we want.

But we have also been reminded whose hands hold time.  God’s do.  And the hands are fingers and thumbs and palms of love.

God is with us in time and forever.