“Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”
-Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper
I have always had a keen awareness of time and its passing in the big picture. I say the big picture, as for anyone who knows me and is reading this, will know that timeliness is not exactly a major strength of mine (because everyone knows that “I’m on my way” really means that “I have not even showered yet”). So, what do I mean when I say I’ve had this keen awareness of time for a while?
How about this: It’s the night before my fifth grade graduation. I have all my stuffed animals on the bed with me, because I do not want any of them to be left out on the eve of such a momentous occasion in my life. I go to bed at 9 but find I cannot sleep. The end of an era is near, and I am acutely aware of how older I have become. I remember my days of youth fondly, the second grade classroom, the Mario brother’s happy meal toy that I almost got taken away from me at recess in first grade, the football with a chunk seemingly eaten out of it that we played with at gym. Where has the time gone, I thought to myself. I found myself restless, and stayed up till almost midnight for my dad to get back from work so I could share my thoughts and fears with both of them. I wish I could remember what they said, but as I am writing this, I can’t stop thinking about how funny they must have found it to have a 10 year old me talk to 40-something year old them about the scary passage of time. But there was truth in it too. Time was moving on. I was going to private school the next year and my life was going to be vastly different. And there was nothing I could do about it.
Fast forward to today, or more specifically this week, the culmination of Salvation History. Judas, along with all of us in our sin, betray our closest friend and perfect lover. And in His mercy, He continues to love us with a love so great it conquers sin, death, and everything else that stands in the way of our relationship. It is not just beautiful, but the source of every hope and dream we and any man who has ever lived could have. And much has been written on His sufferings and triumphs by those much smarter and wiser than me. The betrayal, His physical suffering, the mental anguish. But one thing I want to focus on today is something that has come across my mind in the past few readings, how Jesus felt about His earthly time running out.
In His divine nature, He knew the day would come. He even uses standards of time in discussing it, frequently saying “My hour”. Yet as we see in the Garden of Gesthemane, it did not make things any easier. And most definitely the anguish and fear was regarding His betrayal, mental anguish, and grisly torture and death. And while I have received no private revelations and do not know the mind of Christ in all its depth, I believe that somewhere in His human worry and concern was the fear of his life ending. Of time running out. And God in His wisdom gave us the answer to this fear, and some perfect examples in Holy Week.
First, is St. Dismas. A criminal condemned to death in the worst possible way. Possibly a thief, possibly a revolutionary, either way, his life must have taken some very wrong turns to end up where he did. And yet, in some of his final moments, and maybe for the first time in his whole life, he makes the right choice. Looking upon the face of Jesus he cried out “Jesus, remember me when you enter into your Kingdom.” The hope that he must have had is an example for us all. And it should also fill us with great hope. No matter how behind we may think we are, no matter how far off the tracks we have gone, we have St. Dismas, who had a good three minutes, and is now in eternal glory with our Lord.
Another Saint to turn to in our age of time crisis is St. Simon of Cyrene. I cannot imagine that if I was driving home in my local New York traffic after work, and an officer of an enemy military commanded me to help a convict to his death, that I would be any more inclined to assist than St. Simon was. And yet after looking upon the eyes of Christ, much like St. Dismas, his heart was forever changed. Tradition holds that he was converted and followed Christ to the place he would die. At first, I imagine he felt he was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet, as he too enjoys the eternal feast, I am sure he can look back now and understand God’s plan had him exactly where he needed to be, even if it felt the exact opposite at the time.
And for our last and best example of how to “win” our fight against time, is Christ Himself. Now Christ is and was perfect, but for our sake experienced the struggles of humanity in everything except sin. Then I think it is fair to say that time expiring was something on His mind. He had spent the last three years with these men, His closest friends and who He would be entrusting His mission too. He had been camping with them, shared meals with them, and gotten to see them grow into who they were to become along the way. It was for the best that He died, rose, and ascended to heaven. But since He was tempted, I am sure He was tempted to ask God the all too familiar question we find ourselves asking when the clock is spinning and our backs against the wall: Why? Why now? Why does it have to be this way?
And yet Christ never doubted. What was His answer?
“Father, into your hands, I commend my Spirit.”
Full and total surrender to the Father’s will. It was the answer for Christ. It is the answer for us today. Jesus knew that despite all the pain and worries, He had a good Father that would take care of Him, and that would make the greatest good out of humanity’s worst moment.
This is what gives Him the ability to go through with such a bold choice to lay down His life. We often look at Christ and Christlike examples and wonder how the heck they can do it. People like Venerable Fr. Emil Kapaun, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Joan of Arc. It was not that they were loved more than any of us, rather it was they knew of God’s love better than us. They take the promise of Christ: that our Father in Heaven knows exactly what we need and will provide (Luke 12:7, Matthew 6:25-34). This frees us and all men to not have to worry or fret about tomorrow. It is what allowed the Lord of all to get down on His knees and wash His friend’s feet, to take the lowest place. He knew he would be taken care of.
And on the matter of time, God knows our worries and our tendencies to be preoccupied with the past and the future. But we need not fear, for the language that Christ Himself uses and language the Bible speaks ensures that we are covered, now and forever.
For example, take what the creatures praising God in Revelation 4 have to say, “Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.” (Rev. 4:8). And the first chapter of Revelation which states that Christ is “The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” (Rev. 1:8). And the words of Christ Himself, which were His last earthly words before ascending according to the Gospel of Matthew, “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” God knows that we are creatures of worry. God knows that I am a creature of worry.
I have transferred colleges a couple times, and it is always hard moving, but even harder moving on from friends and loved ones and special places. People who I slept under the same roof with have become unintentional players in a game of country wide phone tag. Visits back home become more infrequent and shorter every time I’m there. My girlfriend and I started dating a week before going long distance. Trying to hold on is like trying to keep grains of sand in my hand from blowing away on a windy day. I can’t do it.
But the good news is that I do not have to do it. Alpha and Omega mean that God is in everything. Although it is important to remember that God and His love are experienced in the here and now and nowhere else, it is a great reassurance to remember that we cannot outrun His love and grace. He is everywhere. He is in my past, my future, and my present. He knows how many hairs are on my head, He knows when a sparrow falls from the sky, so surely He cares about me more than I can ever care about myself. He knows what he is about. Christ did not overcome these dreadful worries by planning, by cataloging, or by journaling. He overcame them with constant surrender, giving every moment He was in over to the Father.
So as we journey through this Triduum, let us have the courage to look Jesus in His eyes as St. Simon and St. Dismas, and filled with the knowledge of His love and the Fathers goodness, cry out and say “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.”
Albom, Mitch. The Timekeeper. Grand Central Publishing. 2012
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