Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

Photo of The Rev. Canon Joe Behen by The Rev. Canon Joe Behen

One evening last week, I was going through e-mails, and I clicked on a video link that a friend sent me.  It was one of those time-lapse videos, showing in about a minute, the passing of a night somewhere in the wilderness.  The stars were vivid, and floated across the sky like leaves on a creek.  Clouds rolled by, growing, tumbling, and disappearing.  Having stepped briefly out of the passage of time that I was used to, this short video made the world seem alive in a way that was breathtaking.

Of course, you can’t watch a YouTube video without seeing several dozen suggestions for similar videos.  I followed a trail of these for about twenty minutes, and finally found myself watching a slow motion video from a Discovery Channel show called Time Warp.  This particular video was simply of a man, holding a large water balloon, and sticking a pin in it.  I don’t know why I even watched it, because the result isn’t much of a mystery.  But yes, apparently, as my daughter sometimes tells me, I need to get a life.  But what this video showed was really fascinating.  After sticking the balloon, it quickly retreated around the perimeter of water that it had occupied, shrinking to nearly nothing.  But the water, for the most part, remained in a large ball in his hand, seemingly unaware for a brief moment, that its container had disappeared.  Maybe I’m just easily entertained, but it looked so bizarre!  Together, these videos made me aware of how our being subject to the steady passing of time, can dull our sense of knowledge and wonder at what is really happening in our world.

In today’s readings on this last Sunday of Advent, it seems that we’re exposed to a sort of time warp effect.  It begins with Isaiah and King Ahaz, and then picks up some 700 years later in the gospel reading, nearly where it left off, but with a new cast.  At least that’s how it’s presented with these two readings being paired together on the same day.  By speeding ahead through time like this, we can see God at work, where it might have been missed while we were locked into the passing of time.

Of course, the story from Isaiah had its own plot, and its own conclusion.  But Matthew goes out of his way to say that this story he is telling, is the continuation of that story.  God’s story telling seems to cross many lives of men and women, and we occasionally need to look broadly at its outline to see how it all fits together.

In the reading from Isaiah, God is said only to want his people to trust Him.  What he wants for them is better than what they want for themselves, because they can only see what’s immediately before them.  Ahaz refuses to trust.  He is bent on securing his own future, leaving no room for trust.  He goes on to do what he thinks will accomplish this, and the result is disastrous, both for him and for the people of Israel and Judah.  But in the time warp version of the story, his refusal of God’s sign sends us whirling into the future, where Joseph is asked to trust this same sign.  He chooses to trust, and thereby it comes to pass.

It seems that, while God desires our participation in fulfilling His promise, our refusal, ironically, does not deter God or the fulfillment of the promise.  It still happens, just elsewhere, with a different cast of characters.

But in viewing our story through this time warp, we move not only from the 7th century BC to the 1st century of this era, but we also move beyond the time of Jesus clear down to the 4th Sunday of Advent, 2010.  We have to know that this same story continues and that we are part of it.  The same promise is on the table for us.  God has promised to be with us.  God has asked for our trust, and for us to live lives that reflect that trust.  What will our response look like?  What are the things in our lives that are making that trust difficult?  What seems to pull us away from God, and how can we go about inviting God into those places?

The videos I mentioned that showed such common things, the kind of things that happen all the time, showed them as they are, but with time altered.  They speak not simply of how cool it would be if we really experienced them this way.  They speak also of the loss and regaining of a kind of fascination for what is before us all the time.  They call attention to what we miss before our eyes, simply because our eyes have become so accustomed to seeing them that we cease to look any more.  The wonder of life disappears in a cloud of knowing.

In the same way, Matthew intends for us not to enjoy his story telling for its cleverness, but ultimately that it might help us to see our own time, our own lives, more clearly and with a renewed sense of wonder.  This renewal of wonder is directly connected to the renewal of our trust.  When we can look around at the world God created, and at the people that he has put into our lives – when we can see the ordinary once in a while, as the extraordinary gifts of the living God – these things become quite enough evidence to renew our trust in the Lord.

We are poised, in this last Sunday of Advent 2010, for the God of our fathers to come into our midst.  A miracle is about to happen in our life.  Trust, and be glad.

Amen.