As I was reading and thinking about these things, I came across this quotation in Pentecost: A Day of Power for All People, by Emilio Alvarez:

This particular focus on honoring or celebrating the fifty days of Pentecost reminds me of the notion of the sanctification of time in Abraham Heschel’s work The Sabbath: “‘While the deities of other peoples were associated with places or things, the God of Israel was the God of events: the Redeemer from slavery, the Revealer of Torah, manifesting Himself in events of history rather than in things or places. Thus, the faith in the unembodied, in the unimaginable was born. Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time.’” (page 17)

I was struck by that phrase, “a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time.”

Rabbi Heschel is writing of the Jewish life, but it is a good description of the Christian life, too—especially as John Wesley would encourage us to live it: living with an awareness of God, knowing that our time is both in God’s hands and is a gift from God, and knowing that we are Christians every moment, not simply during Sunday worship. Time as both a gift and a way of living—lots to contemplate there.

Grace and peace,

Becky

Prayer:

God of love and God of presence, we thank you for this strange gift of time, which sometimes stretches and sometimes collapses into almost nothing. We thank you for the ways that you have become clearly present to us in the past, and for the ways that you continue to make yourself known in the present—and we trust in your continued love and accompaniment in our future. We ask that you help us to see the ways in which we live our lives, that we live in such a way that our time is sanctified to you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.