Contemplating Time

The end of another year prompts musings on time. The civil calendar and the sacred calendar are entirely different. The sacred year begins with the fourth Sunday prior to Christmas Day (November or December) and ends with the Saturday after Christ the King Sunday (late November). The church year, with its recurring cycle of days and seasons, is thus cyclical. The civil calendar always seems more self-contained with a specific point and observance of beginning and end. Indeed, we even count it down by the second in Times Square and give it a new numeric designation each January 1, something that we don't do with the church year.

Because of the gradual slowing of the earth's rotation on its axis, 2005 will receive a "leap second" an extra second added to the year to make up for the slowing. Twenty-one leap seconds have been added since 1972. This year's 61-second final minute of the year has no effect on the speed of the earth, of course. It allows our clocks and measuring of human time to remain constant it allows human time to remain in sync with God's time. If we didn't make the addition, we'd eventually have midnight during the middle of the day and noon during the middle of the night.

Time, a human invention, is tied closely to the heavens and God's creation. Last week on December 21, 2005, as my dog and I enjoyed our daily early morning walk, I was comforted by the knowledge that the day was the shortest day of the year and that each successive day would bring more daylight time and an earlier sunrise and later sunset on my alarm clock.

Consider these facts that can be understood only in a combined context of time, distance, and velocity:

• Light travels 186,000 miles in one second (a "light second").
• Light travels 5,865,596,000,000 miles in one year (a "light year").
• The closest star other than our sun is 24,000,000,000,000 miles away (4 1/4 light years)
• Light travels 1 foot in a nanosecond (one billionth of a second).

To connect these musings on time to music, I'll borrow from Carl Sagan's cosmic calendar (see The Dragons of Eden paperback ed., by Sagan; Ballantine Books, 1986; ISBN 0345346297). If we represent all of time from creation's Big Bang 15 billion years ago to the present moment in a one-year calendar:

• January 1: Creation of the universe.
• September 9: Our solar system forms.
• September 14: Earth and moon form.
• September 25: First chemical trace of life.
• October 9: Oldest fossil evidence of life.
• November 19: First complex cells with nucleus.
• December 24: Dinosaurs appear.
• December 28:Dinosaurs disappear.
• December 29: First primates appear.
• December 30 First pre-human hominids appear
• December 31, 10:30 p.m.:First humans appear on earth; origins of music.
• December 31, 11:59:20: Invention of agriculture.
• December 31, 11:59:51: Recorded music history begins (c.1500 BC)
• December 31, 11:59:56: First Christian music
• December 31, 11:59:58: First polyphonic music
• December 31, 11:59:59 1/2: First hymns of Charles Wesley; death of J. S. Bach

Such a representation of time and history results in a rather insignificant place for humans. We don't even appear on the calendar until the last day is almost over. And those battles we've been waging over musical style and language in worship will require a precision stopwatch to see. Nevertheless, we are assured that God created us in that last hour (Genesis), is mindful of us (Psalm 8), and loves us (John 3:16).

All of these ideas creation, God's time, human time, the changing of the seasons and calendar, the end of time are all contained in the songs and hymns that we sing. Here are some of them from The United Methodist Hymnal (numbers under 2000) and The Faith We Sing (numbers over 2000):

• God comes to us, meets us, moves, and endlessly becomes; God is the "womb and birth of time" (105, "God of Many Names")
• God, who existed before time, took human form in Jesus (108, "God Hath Spoken by the Prophets")
• "Time [is] like an ever rolling stream," and "bears us all away" (117, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past")
• We are to "wait [in] God's time" for our "waves and clouds and storms [to] end in joyous day" (129, "Give to the Winds Thy Fears")
• God sustains the whole creation in every time and season (132, "All My Hope Is Firmly Grounded")
• God, who created all that is, is infinite in time and place, and is still creating; we share those creative powers (150, "God, Who Stretched the Spangled Heavens")
• Jesus' kingdom is still increasing and has no end; time will never remove his covenant (203, "Hail to the Lord's Anointed")
• The "ever-circling years" will eventually bring "peace over all the earth" (218, "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear")
• In the "hopeless time of sin . . . when all seemed lost in night," Jesus, the "Son of heaven," came, bringing "endless joy" and "highest hope" (233, "Cold December Flies Away")
• Jesus came "late in time," causing even the angels to sing (240, "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing")
• God's sacrifice at Calvary marks the "miracle of time" (290, "Go to Dark Gethsemane")
• The cross of Christ "towers o'er the wrecks of time" (295, "In the Cross of Christ I Glory")
• Jesus was born at "the fullness of the appointed time" (296, "Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle")
• The risen Christ is not bound by past time or place, but "comes to claim the here and now and dwell in every place and time" (318, "Christ Is Alive")
• Every day in the march of time is a "day of new beginnings" (383, "This Is a Day of New Beginnings")
• Jesus is calling us to come home, even as "time is now fleeting" and "moments are passing" (348, "Softly and Tenderly")
• Human existence is being "tossed and driven on the restless sea of time" (525, "We'll Understand It Better By and By")
• God will make "all things beautiful" in God's time (2203, "In His Time")
• When our "feeble life is o'er" and "time will be no more," God will guide us home (2158, "Just a Closer Walk with Thee")

Janus was the Roman god of gates, doors, beginnings, and endings. He was usually depicted with two faces, one looking forward and one looking backward. He was the god of transitions, including transition from the past to the future. Our month of January is named for Janus. During this day of transition from the old year to the new year, time can be perceived as recurring and circular or linear and segmented. It can measure the brief span of our individual earthly existence or the vast distances of the universe. We can use it to understand human existence or divine design. We should not look longingly at what is past, nor solely at what lies ahead. Let us look in both directions, just as do the words of our hymns.