The time has come

Mark 1:14-15

The world tells the time with clocks and appointment diaries.  We like to control our time.  But in these verses, Jesus says the time (kairos) has come.

Kairos time is God's time.  Like good comedians, God has a sense of timing.  In the context of Jesus, Kairos is the time for God to do something unique, never to be repeated.  Everything that God has ever done finds its centre, its heart in the presence of Jesus in the world.  Everything has been leading up to this time, and everything leads from this time. The western world has acknowledged this in dating our calendar from God's kairos time.

(Although the world probably no longer accepts or realises what it really means to date time from the coming of Jesus into the world).

I was hearing about the experiences of a South African woman yesterday.  She grew up under the apartheid regime, and never expected it to end in her lifetime.  South Africa still has its particular problems, and no doubt some of them are as a result of years of apartheid, but there is no doubt that things are different now.  The kairos time came for that inhuman regime to end.  

And what about Israel Palestine ?  It seems - well not hopeless because there are cracks of hope - but certainly not hopeful as far as a lasting, just solution is concerned.  But if it could happen in South Africa, where there was also little hope at times, then it could happen in Israel Palestine.

There are people, both Palestinian and Israeli, who are doing good work.  There are those on the outside who have influence.  What we need is a combination of the two, so that there will be a kairos time for change.

For more on this see:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/10/palestine-israel-peace-campaigners