In Biblical Greek, there are two words for time: Chronos and Kairos. In English, our word "time" includes both meanings. We can understand Biblical theology much better if we can discern the difference, not just conceptually, but as a deep- felt experience.

"Chronos" refers to clock time. Slow, unrelenting, duration. Day in. Day out. We get our English word, "chronology," from the Greek word, "chronos." We measure "chronos" with our clocks and calendars.

When we say, "What ‘time’ is it?" we are asking about "chronos" time. "Kairos" refers to quality time. It is the experience of time that is "timeless." When we are enjoying ourselves, we lose a sense of time. We forget about time. This is "kairos" time. When we say, "My, how ‘time’ flies," or "We’re having the ‘time’ of our lives," we’re referring to "kairos" time.

Kairos is more akin to the concept of "eternity." Not a "time" that goes on forever, but a time that is outside of time, ever present no matter what the time of day or decade.

If we think of "heaven" as a symbol for "kairos" time …

And if we think of "earth" as symbolic of "chronos" time ….

Then we will have a window into not only the Biblical mythos, but the underlying significance of Greek mythology as well.

The Greek god, "Chronos," is the personification of time.

He lives down here on earth with his mother, Gaea, Mother Nature.

"Father Time" as we know him. He shows up on our greeting cards at this time of year. He is featured in many great works of art.

He is the old man with a graybeard, often holding a scythe, or sickle, in one hand and an hourglass in the other.

The hourglass means he is the "time keeper." He represents "time keeping."

The sickle refers to "reaping." Sometimes known as the "grim reaper," representing the devastation or toll that time takes on us.

The word "scythe" refers to cutting, and the crescent blade is symbolic of the crescent moon, and the cycles of the moon, the sometimes-cruel flow of time. How time so catches up with us!

On New Year’s Day, we are marking time. We are remembering and anticipating.

It is here that Chronos shows his aged face.

However, it is the gesture he makes that brings joy to New Year’s Day. He represents a changeover, the ever-present, living principle of endings and new beginnings. Each day, week, month, year and lifetime.

Chronos, Father Time, hands the mantle to the Baby New Year.

A time in our lives when we look back at the high points, and the low points of the past year.

And when we look forward, making our new years resolutions and otherwise articulating our hopes.

And perhaps most importantly, when we grasp a portal in our moments, and step through, and get a taste of eternity.

"Saturn" is the Roman counterpart to the Greek "Chronos." Saturn: contraction, pulling in.

And here is where the Greek and Roman mythos carries a hidden truth.

Saturn was the youngest son of Uranus, the sky god, or "heaven," if you will.

His mother was Gaea, the "Earth Mother." "Mother Nature."

Gaea took flint and made for Chronos his sickle.

At the encouragement of Gaea, "Mother Earth," Chronos emasculated his father.

This created the deep separation between heaven from earth.

Thus, we experience the flow of time, here on earth.

We have in our hearts, a deep longing for something more, something eternal, and something outside the humdrum of day in day out.

In our moments of "kairos" time, with arms around shoulders and fireworks overhead, swaying to "Auld Lang Syne," we are reaching for it. Perhaps we get a small taste of it.

"Chronos" time is something we always want more of, yet it haunts us.

Looking down seeing wrinkled hands, we notice children growing up.

When we lived in Independence, MO, I called on a young family with a little boy, struggling to learn how to ride a bicycle.

I spent some time with him, helping him find his balance.

We have been buddies, ever since.

This Christmas, his parents sent us a Christmas card with their pictures.

This little boy is now a big, handsome, grown man.

That seems like only yesterday!

The disappointments of youth. The aches and pains of our aging.

A few weeks ago, someone was in the office, and we were complaining about the aches and pains of aging.

Someone remarked, "Growing old sure is not for wimps."

To grow old gracefully takes raw will power.

Watching the world change around us. Feeling outdated.

Connie’s cell phone has a battery that will not hold a charge.

So we were in a store looking for a new cell phone.

Cell phones are still new to me, so I asked her, what does your cell phone do?

"It makes phone calls," she said. "Of course," I said. "And," she said, "It acts like an answering machine. People can leave messages."

Pretty neat! For something you can hold in the palm of your hand, with no wires, it can do all that! We were about to discover something more.

Now days, you can watch television on your cell phone.

You can take pictures with your cell phone, and even moving videos, and send them over the phone wire.

You can play MP3 music on your cell phone. It is your "boom box."

You can have full web connection; keep your calendar, to-do lists.

If you need to, you can make a phone call.

The world is changing, and changing very rapidly. It is so easy to feel outdated.

Madison, our granddaughter, had one of these MP3 players, and walked around the house with earphones strapped to her head.

Snapping her fingers and bouncing back and forth to music that only she could hear. I thought to myself, that’s silly. To stay isolated like that.

You know how we older folks tend to think: what is becoming of this younger generation?

Madison tried to console us by explaining what an MP3 player is.

We were not getting it.

Christy told Madison not to worry about it, that we just had not caught up with her yet.

They had pooled their resources and gave me an MP3 player for Christmas.

Shannon had to sit me down and explain it to me. Now I get it.

So now, I walked around the house with my earphones, snapping my fingers to music that only I could hear.

Chronos, Father Time, marches through our lives changing everything.

Sometimes the change is slow, and we do not notice it as much.

Sometimes the change is overnight, and suddenly, all life is different.

The only thing we can say for sure about this coming year is that next year at this time, everything will be different.

The religions of the world have their versions of Chronos.

Hinduism has, as one in its trinity, "Shiva," if I remember right, the God of destruction.

Buddhism talks about how important and insightful is the recognition of "impermanence."

We might even say that Buddhism was inspired by this realization.

Christianity, too.

We spend our Advent and Christmas talking about Jesus as coming to bring "peace." This is our affirmation, for sure.

Yet this is not complete without a "Chronos" counterpart.

Almost paradoxically, we hold in balance the verses read this morning, where Jesus did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

To kindle fire upon the earth and tend it until it blazes.

Jesus, as God’s presence in our lives, carries a message of purgation, cleansing as preparation for renewal, crucifixion unto resurrection.

When my mother was a live, and living alone, I tried to explain to her how much easier her life would be with a microwave oven.

However, she insisted on cooking the old fashion way.

She did not trust anything that cooked from the inside out and left the plate cool to the touch.

I remember driving to my hometown and having lunch with her.

Sitting around the kitchen table eating stove-warmed leftovers.

These were moments the preciousness of which perhaps I did not realize at the time.

It is in such moments that we hear a shuffle of feet outside our front door.

The doorbell rings and we open it.

And find standing there, Father Time, with his sickle in his hand.

He invites us to look back and appreciate. Good times. Rough times.

He invites us to look back and learn the lessons of our history.

News channels do this on a global scale … the highlights of 2005, the crises.

Chronos also invites us to look forward.

And 2006, we anticipate, will be a very good year for all of us. We pronounce it so.

We have seen our valleys. Now for a few mountaintops. Spiritual prosperity.

But most importantly. And this he whispers.

We lean over to listen. To catch every word. And Chronos whispers.

"Celebrate your temporary. This is the only time you have. Celebrate the temporary."

For it is only in our momentary celebrations of the temporary,

That we catch fleeting glimpses of eternity.

Kairos time.