One of Three

but at the proper time manifested, even His word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior, Titus 1:3 NASB

At the proper time – You can probably guess what the Greek term is. Kairos, of course. The untranslatable word for time that isn’t found in the previous verse appears here. It is that perfect moment when everything comes together. In this case, Paul’s example of that moment is the manifestation of God in the Messiah. Paul knows that it isn’t quite enough to have the hope of chronon aionion. Waiting and waiting and waiting is a tiring business. So, reasons Paul, let’s remember a previous example of waiting that actually has been fulfilled. The Messiah has come. The promise has been realized. Yes, it took a long time, but it was worth it. Now you can rest assured that the other promises will also come to pass, even if it takes a long time.

How long did we wait for the appearance of the Messiah? Ah, from our perspective it doesn’t seem that long. After all, we can read the entire story in a day. But that story covers thousands of years and all the time those people waited.   It didn’t seem like a day to them. In fact, for most of them, their entire lives passed without any resolution of the hope. Why do we suddenly imagine that we stand any closer to the next fulfillment? Get some perspective! You haven’t struggled through slavery, civil war, idolatrous monarchies, occupation, captivity, and destruction. You have no idea what waiting is really like. You haven’t cried out to God for generations! Remember that Paul expected the Messiah to return quickly. He already had the perspective of waiting a very long time. But we seemed to have missed that point. Paul was mistaken. The Messiah has not returned. But just as Paul noticed that he and his people waited for centuries for the manifestation of the Messiah, so we must recognize that just because a few thousand years have passed since Paul wrote this letter does not mean we don’t have to have the same patient endurance.

Kairos is that moment when everything conspires to bring about a desired end. Kairos is what we are really looking for, in the promises of God and in our own hopes and dreams. The rest is the routine, the chronos of existence. Of course, a great deal of chronos might be necessary before everything lines up, but the moment that matters is the arrival point. Most of the time we aren’t even aware that this moment is speeding toward us at the pace of life. Most of the time we are caught in the ordinary, the repetitious, the grind. We fail to see that alignment is taking place constantly. Then suddenly everything fits and in perfect hindsight we realize that it couldn’t have happened any sooner.

What if you looked at your life as the anticipation of a kairos moment? Would that make the routine less burdensome? Would you thank God that every one of those ordinary, exasperating repetitions was in fact a preparation for the big event?

Topical Index: kairos, proper time, Titus 1:3