What happens when something eternal enters human history? How do we, who live in the measures of time, even fathom what the realm beyond time might be like?
The Cosmic Calendar
Consider the vastness of the universe. Every time we step outside, we encounter a glimpse of the largeness of Creation. Years ago, I came across a concept called the Cosmic Calendar, in which the life of our known universe was condensed into one calendar year. If the Big Bang which occurred nearly 14 billion years ago marks January first of that year, we can see where various other events, like the formation of earth, or the beginnings of life, fall during that span of time. Where do human beings fit in? Miraculously, only in the very last minute of that calendar year, on December 31st! The realization is startling. In the grand scale of the universe, human history is only a minute, and each of our lives is briefer than the blink of an eye.
Today’s reading from the second letter of Peter reminds us of how large and deep is God’s perspective compared to our own. Peter was writing to a community that was fervently awaiting the second coming of Christ in their own lifetimes, and thus he reminds them of the eternal nature of the Lord, for whom “one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.”
A Thousand Years like a Day
Let that verse sink into your ears for a moment. A thousand years like a day? Or a day like one thousand years? To equate one with the other seems impossible for us. For God who dwells outside of time, though, there is no long or short, no far or near: all abides within eternity.
And yet, even then, the miraculous thing is this: you matter. Immense as all of the universe is, the life of a single person has far more value than all the galaxies combined. God’s patience is unsurpassed. He sees both the span of many thousand years, and the smallest details of one day within a person’s life. He desires that all come to repentance, as Peter tells us in his letter, and it is in light of this divine patience that the distinctions of time fade away.
Love Does Such Things
Our God is not simply creator of the universe, but above all the God of human hearts. Our yes to Him matters immensely. One might ask, why would He who dwells outside of time choose to enter a human life mired in the constraints of time, where things come and pass away constantly? In a word, Love. Out of love, God the Eternal Word leapt from heaven into the ground of human life, where all things pass away. Love does such things.
We hear that echo of love in the words of Isaiah from our first reading today: Comfort, O comfort my people. God does not leave His people to perish but offers the promise of restoration, indeed a “new heaven and new earth.” It is then for this God, the eternal and ever-living God, and the one for whom “a thousand years is like a day,” that we are called to make space in our hearts. “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
During these weeks of Advent, let us pause to consider the greatness of the invitation. The coming of Christ into our world signals the explosion of eternal life into our own temporal lives. Eternity breaks through the framework of our time-driven world and waits at the door of each soul, asking that we let Him in. And so, friends, let us make space for Him! Let us clear away all attachments so that God may dwell richly within us, filling us with the fragrance of eternity.
Merry Christmas to you and your family. Hoping your baby continues to be well.