There we are, with Janus, looking back over the past year, the past of our life, the past of humanity filled with thankfulness and regret, gratitude and remorse. We can create a laundry list a mile long of all the things we should have done as we review the landscape that is the past. (As one of my favorite professors was wont to say and aptly noted, "Don't should on me.")
And there we are, with Janus, gazing into the days that will become our lives filled with hope and a little trepidation, optimism and a little uncertainty about what these days and weeks and months and years that move toward us will hold.
Every year at this time (and, perhaps, quite often throughout the year) we stand vigil with Janus reviewing what has been and anticipating what will be.
One danger of this way of seeing and being in the world, of course, is that we miss what is transpiring right now, in the moment. Yes, we are wise to learn from the past and prudent to plan for the future. However, if we continually function fixated on what has been or transfixed on what might be, we miss out on what God has given us in the immediate moment.
I think one of the remarkable characteristics of Jesus was his ability to be--and to be with people--in the moment. Linear time and the movement of it, as it plays out in the gospels, does not drive Jesus. Rather, Jesus controls his engagement with time and is fully present to and with so many people in so many moments.
Thus, Christianity borrowed from the Greeks a vital distinction regarding time. Chronos described time in a linear way and was generally a quantitative descriptor of time. Meanwhile, kairos referred to the right or opportune moment--the supreme moment--that was not bound by linear time. Rather kairos possessed a qualitative sense to it that transcended the inevitable flow of time.
We speak about the kairotic nature of God at this point in the year, for we believe that in Jesus the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Literally, Jesus in time and, yet, Jesus beyond time, transcending time because time has its beginning and end--the fulfillment of time is found-- in Jesus the Christ. The supreme moment that is timeless and for all time.
On the other hand, a danger of standing vigil with Janus year after year is the sense that (with Qoheleth the writer of Ecclesiastes) there is nothing new under the sun. We are resigned to little more than the rhythms of life and the cycle of the seasons. When we groove on this rhythm or are entranced with the changes of the seasons, we may not be cognizant of any problem. However, when we find ourselves at that point where it is the same old same old, we recognize the banality of this rhythm and the monotony of the cycle.
Into this scenario, the kairos of Christ possesses meaning. We are not simply spinning on this globe, madly driven to see life as a bad episode of Groundhog's Day. Rather, God in the incarnation, enters time and space, to disrupt the rhythm and cycle. While the seasons continue to change, and we will invariably mark time as we journey through life, we do so acknowledging that the character of time has changed. It is imbued with the presence of God.
We may not always recognize the reality of the Holy in our midst nor the presence of Christ in each moment. Yet, the promise of God in Christ remains with us now and forever, And, lo, I am with you always until the ends of the earth.
Ultimately, what this means is that we do not ring in the new year or each new day or the newest moment of life just with Janus. Every year, every day, every moment is lived in the presence of the God-who-dwells-with-us, the kairotic one: Emmanuel.
Happy New Year!
Mark
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