Romans 13:11-14

You know what time it is! Right now, as I write, my phone, watch, laptop, and clock on the office phone are displaying the time. At this very moment in Kansas City it is 2:13 p.m. At least, that is what the scientists, astronomers, and engineers of technology have all agreed upon based upon where the sun shines on the Earth – and so astonishingly in Tokyo it is 5:13 a.m. on tomorrow’s calendar day. We who live in North America live most of our days under the tyranny of time. We are overwhelmed with schedules, meeting times, family calendars, after-school activities, and doctors’ appointments. And yet, however much time we “have” it never seems like “enough.”

In this season of advent, we embark through a sense of time – one of anticipation, hope and a coming forth of something new. In our text from Roman’s today Paul speaks to us in a familiar way of time – that an hour has come, the night is coming to an end, and the day is almost here. It is not just the sound of an alarm clock reading us for a new day, something more miraculously begs us to wake from our slumber as the sun peaks through the dawn of the morning. It is the call to put on clothes in the morning of light and presence in the world.

What time is it for us?  It is a moment when the past may not be completely gone, but the new has truly come. A time to embrace the reality that every moment is rich with divine possibility, if we are brave enough to wake up to it. When we do, we may just see the imminent breaking in of grace, love, and eternity. My calendar may be inviting me to a meeting, but God is inviting us to dream of a new heaven and a new earth. To be ready for a day when we are reshaped in God’s imagine. It’s not about circling a date on the calendar, it is about the hope that comes at the breaking of dawn – joy the world.