Beyond the Time That Remains: Christ’s Reconstitution of Time

The experience of gathering around the death bed of a family member creates a time experience which the New Testament refers to as Kairos. It is a time of summing up; each moment is saturated, as the time that remains is short.  This is the culminating point –  a point of passage.  Ordinary chronos passes by in a rapid succession of moments – endured and forgotten.  The sacred times of our life, the times of fulfillment or kairoi, are definitive as they mark meaning, final identity, and telos.  The stories we tell to explain who we are, these are the kairoi – the definitive events which constitute our personhood.  The Hebraic notion of an event oriented time is fused with biblical narrative so that the present is an extension of the past leading to a future messianic time – the pleroma or fullness of time.[1]  Every story and all time is oriented to this eschatological purpose. Continue reading “Beyond the Time That Remains: Christ’s Reconstitution of Time”