Genesis 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days, and years,
What would life be like if we didn’t have a calendar? How about a clock, watch, or cell phone to tell us what time it is. What happened three days ago wouldn’t have happened. There would have been no “Goodbye 2020” and no “Hello 2021!”
So many things in life depend on the passage of time and the tracking of that passage. “How old are you?” is a meaningless question if you don’t track time. “See you next Tuesday” is also meaningless. “Talk to you in an hour.” Meaningless.
We would be in a mess if suddenly we forgot about tracking time. The functioning of society would stop dead in its tracks. No Inaugurations. No ‘on time’ deliveries. No Super Bowls. We might be able to pull off simple farming, but not well enough to feed everyone. What would we write on the gravestones?
The simple act of having the sun and moon in the sky set up the framework for time keeping. Everyone can see the sun come up and go down and keep track of the days. Some track the phases of the moon to mark off months. Fewer can see the shifting of the constellations over the year, some drifting below the horizon for months before reappearing.
What a blessing to have the ability to track time. And this tracking of time is a blessing from the LORD. He placed them there so that all of life would be marked as sacred. Each sunrise and sunset would be seen as the LORD marking the time. Is this the way we see time passing? Do we see each movement of time as a sacred action?
Perhaps in this year of 2021 we can choose to see the passage of time differently. In some liturgical church traditions they have set prayers that get said everyday as certain times, to help keep the focus on the LORD and not on us. They mark the passage of time with prayer.
So what are some of the things we can do to mark the passage of time and recognize it as sacred?
The Arnold Journey 