QUESTION: What is the importance of time in human life? How does the understanding of time affect the life of a Christian? – Fr. Job K.M.

ANSWER: Jacob Parappally MSFS

In myths as well as in history, the understanding of time plays an important role in the ordering of human life. The beginning and the end of individuals and human society can be thought of and can be divided into various irreversible happening of events taking place in continuous sequence. As many humans existed in the past and as many humans exist in the present and as many humans yet to come into the world in the future have their own irreversible and continuous sequence of events in their life and so each one has his or her time and personal history. When the sequence of continuous events happens to a group of people or to all people in the world, they can be seen from the perspective of a universal time or world history.
Humans understand the world only in space and time categories. As long as humans exist, they are able to discover the beginning of the world at a particular point. Therefore, time is to be understood only in relation to the world. When the world ends, time also ends. In Matthew 28:20 the promise of the risen Christ is that he would be with the disciples till the end of the world or the end of time. “I will be with you till the consummation of the world/time”(ecce ego vobiscum sum consummationem saeculi). The Latin word, saeculum from which the English word secular originates can mean both space and time, world and time. The passage of time in a person’s life brings changes in physical growth, mental abilities, spiritual growth, deepening or losing of social relationships, work-experiences, gain or loss of possessions and positions etc. How a person responds to such vagaries of time makes a person or breaks a person. A positive attitude towards successive events in life, both pleasant and unpleasant, success and failures, joys and sorrows can contribute to the quality of life of a person and a negative or indifferent attitude towards them can make a person depressed and frustrated with life, and consequently one may choose to end his or her life. Time is a teacher and a healer. As a teacher, it teaches about the vulnerability of humans that in a fraction of a second, life can end, however powerful and wealthy one is. Therefore, time teaches us to make the best of life to become better humans. Time heals because even the most difficult matters and painful problems in life fade away or become less difficult to accept with the passage of time.

A Christian World-view of Time

Cosmic religions, like Hinduism, have a cyclic view of time. Human beings go through a cycle of birth and rebirth till they are liberated from it. But the Semitic religions, like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, have a linear view of time. Time began with the creation of humans, as God created the Sun and moon to give light for day and night, respectively and to determine seasons, days and years (Gen 1:14). The New Testament further affirms a linear view of time (Luke 2:4; 3:23-38; 17:22-30; 21:7-28; Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:1-11). The entire biblical understanding of time is not just a sequence of successive events but a purposeful happening of events leading to a finality. The events happen in an irreversible order. It is not just any history, but salvation history. As salvation history, it begins with God’s salvific plan for humans and it begins with the creation of heaven and earth. It ends with a definitive eschatological ending with the end of time with the creation of a new heaven and new earth ( Revelation: 21:1).
It is through the linear movement of time or successive events that God shapes salvation history with the co-operation of humans. But humans, by misusing and abusing their freedom, did not let God fulfil salvation history as he had planned. That is the reason for misery and misfortune in this world. Human rebellion against the flow of history by thwarting God’s plan could not succeed. God had to intervene in history without destroying the freedom of humans. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God”(Galatians 4:4-6). . God, himself, becomes human, taking upon himself the rebellious nature of humans and transforms it to continue the course of salvation history to its fulfilment. In Jesus Christ, both human and divine, trans-history and history meet, eternal and temporal meet. After the time of Jesus, the curtain which separated sacred and secular, time and eternity are torn open from top to bottom. From the definitive and decisive intervention of God in history in Jesus Christ, eternity has become tempiternity. As the hominization of the Word affected the entire universe and all humans before the hominized or incarnated Word or Jesus Christ, all humans before him, all humans after him and all humans contemporaneous with him are affected by him because in him God assumed the entire human nature. All free decisions he took during his earthly life, or in the course his time were tempiternal decisions. So too, for every disciple of Jesus, time is important for taking free decisions that affect not only her or his life but the life of every human as well as the world.
Two terms are used to express time in Greek, namely, chronos and kairos. Chronos is the measurable time, in the sense that the events are happening as in the case of living organisms that are born, grow and decay as a part of their make-up or are made to happen successively by human will and decisions. They affect everyone positively or negatively depending on the nature of events. But kairos is graceful time or opportune time. All interventions of God in history, as it happened in the hominization of the Word or incarnation, is a kairos. It is important for a Christian to recognize the kairos in her/ his life and respond to it positively for the transformation of oneself and the world. The world which God created is a grace-filled world. In the grace-filled world, every chronos is kairos except that which is filled with human egoism and selfishness to dominate and control others and the surroundings. Secular time is also a sacred time when it is suffused with human willingness to do well and enter into right relationship with God, others and nature.

Responsible Use of Time

In the linear world-view of time which is intertwined with the Christian belief, every event and every decision concerning one’s response to it is irreparable. It is a situation as narrated by the hymn, “Yesterday is gone, tomorrow may never be mine”, one has to make decisions today or at the present moment. Therefore, one needs to live in constant alertness about what is happening within oneself and in the world around. Ability to respond to the world adequately and as one ought to, is the meaning of responsibility. As life is difficult, the way one chooses to respond to the events of life with proper disposition to turn the events, pleasant or unpleasant, demanding sacrifices or not, to improve the quality of one’s life and one’s relationship with others is the responsible use of time. When one realizes that she or he has a mission in this world, to make a positive difference in the lives of others, time will be used purposefully. It is certain that whether one uses time consciously and purposefully or not events happen in a succession or time will elapse in relation to one’s life.

Importance of Time

Only for those who are clear about what they want to be in life and those who have set goals to achieve in life, time is important. Others will while away their time spending it on unnecessary and unimportant events. It is a Christian faith-conviction that every decision, deliberately made concerning one’s relationship with God and others in the present life-time of a person will have positive or negative consequences in a life beyond one’s life-time. Decisions taken in time will determine life beyond time. It will be a continuation of life, either with God or without God. A life without God is not life at all. Since we are created for being with God and we are restless till we rest in God, as St.Augustine says, the decisions that one makes in one’s own personal history make one to be restful in God beyond this life or to be restless for all eternity.
Opportunities to do well can come at any time and they need to be seized without any delay. It is said that time and tide will not wait for anyone. When one realizes that her or his life in this world is only for a short time in comparison with eternity, or as the Psalmist says, “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10). In such a short life, whatever we do to make others happy and contented matters in our life. But many people spend their time for their own private interests and selfish pursuits, investing all their energies as if there would not be any end to their lives. Though the most certain event for humans is that their life will end one day, most of the people do not take it seriously and do not use the time at their disposal to come closer to God or to better their relationship with others.
The book of Ecclesiastes states clearly: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together ;a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace…God has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (3:1-11). Humans who hold eternity within their hearts, have, like God, only a present. Some live in the past and make their life miserable by comparing it with the present and worrying about the future and thus forget to live a meaningful life. But for a believer, every moment of time is a graceful time for encountering God and she/he lives in the present, experiencing the presence of God. They make every chronos or every measurable time to a kairos or graceful time, every event a moment of God-experience!