Kairos

Today our prayer is:

Sometimes, I forget, O God, that time is kairos in your hands not mine.  Amen.

What is kairos?  What does it mean that time is kairos in God's hands?

The Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos.  Chronos refers to the quantity of time, the passage of minutes, hours, weeks and years. Kairos refers to the quality of time, the right moment. Kairos time is independent of past, present or future and is the time that has ripened, is blooming, or reveals fulfillment.

In our reading today, Jeremiah speaks to the Israelites held captive in Babylon of the coming days when God would fulfill his promise. We wait today for our social, cultural and political woes to resolve. We each wait for the events in our personal life to ripen and bloom.  Advent is the season we take time to remember what it is to wait for the promise that comes in God's time, in kairos.