Chronos, Kairos, and a Few Less Clocks

With the arrival of Daylight Savings Time (DST) I’ve come to a stunning realization: I don’t own as many clocks as I used to.

In former times, DST created a sort of chaotic urgency on Saturday night where we would lose another hour of our lives bouncing around the house looking for every obscure alarm clock, wall clock, or unused watch in our quest to ensure we were in step with the rest of the world (if not with Arizona and those rogue counties in Indiana).

And even after all this, there would always be a clock or watch that would elude our efforts, inciting a split-second panic--wondering whether or not we were in fact late or early.

And then there were the cars. Always the cars. Detroit (or in some cases Japan) made those car clocks as difficult to change as its differential fluid. A degree in electrical engineering seemed necessary to get the job done, and I always sat wondering how I could forget such a simple task in a mere six months.

But times have changed. This morning I changed my watch and fiddled briefly with the only two clocks I could find—the ones on our oven and microwave.  And then I was done, excluding of course the cars. I will deal with them in due time. They are easier but still present a formidable challenge—one for which I must gear up.

Of course this easier road is mostly credited to the mobile phone. Now we’ve always got one near our side, and when it sleeps its clock usually stands by, quietly awaiting our eventual inquiry. I still wear a watch, but my children rarely do. I probably wouldn’t except I can’t keep track of my mobile phone and I need a heart rate monitor (a  feature of my watch) to remind me that I’m still alive.

It also seems that clocks no longer are the components of home décor they once were. We no longer see the need to have a clock associated with an Elvis felt or vinyl. We no longer have to look to the landscape on the north wall to detect the clock that never quite worked correctly anyway (those battery operated units…). These are mostly good things, although I would like to encounter a grandfather clock or two now and then. They seem to be diminishing a bit as well….

I think about time quite a bit. It dogs me. It sometimes haunts me. I’m in a constant battle with it. It seems there is never enough of it and I’m constantly angry at for my inability to subdue it. I am always blaming the lack of it for my many deficiencies.

This morning as I began changing the clocks I started thinking about the Koine Greek language and its two words for time. Koine Greek is the primary language of the New Testament, and while I’m far from a scholar of it, I’ve read some interesting articles and heard some compelling lectures about it over the years. And, I’ve benefitted greatly from my daughter’s and son’s study of it in college.

I think it was a Christian speaker named Gregg Harris who first introduced me to Koine’s two words for time—Chronos (or Khronos) and Kairos. Chronos, as you might expect, means what we generally think of time, primarily that of chronological time. It represents the finite and fixed 24 hours that we have in each day. Chronos time is measurable and quantifiable.

Kairos as I understand it seeks to capture the non-chronological aspect of time. Strong's Greek Concordance defines it as a “fitting season,” “opportunity,” or “occasion.” It seems that in Kairos we shed the constraints and limitations of Chronos and seize the moment, redeeming and maximizing the moments and opportunities before us.

If I am personally locked into the Chronos (and I so often am), I become a slave to it. To live in the Kairos seems to demand that the bonds of Chronos be loosed to discern what is best, what is right, and what is lasting.  More than some sort of weak discussion of quantity time vs. quality time, it seems that living in the Kairos demands we choose the better way. Like Mary and Martha in the New Testament, it seems to be a distinction between busy-ness and devotion, between heat and light.

Perhaps no other passage captures this better than Ephesians 5:15-17 where the Apostle Paul writes: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶ making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. ¹⁷ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

While not written in the Koine, an Old Testament passages come to mind as well. Moses, in Psalm 90:2 writes: So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. It seems that this process of “numbering our days” places the eternal always before us.

And is it not in the eternal in which God dwells? The Apostle Peter  tells us: But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (I Peter 3:8)

May we live each day thinking “Kairos,” where the eternal subdues and renders impotent the stress and urgency of Chronos. May we ponder how our own routine might be challenged like Esther’s of the Old Testament. Could we be placed right here, right now “for a time such as this?”

Happy DST Day! Now out to that car.