Wibbly-wobbly Timey-wimey Stuff

1 Peter 3:11-22
A sermon preached by the Rev. Adrienne Koch at Trinity Cathedral on the sixth Sunday of Easter 2023.

Whether it’s the Timelord, Doctor Who, or the trans warp conduits of Star Trek’s Borg or the middle-aged Chinese immigrant woman in the recent film Everything Everywhere All at Once, all these time and space traveling fantasy characters point us toward something true that writers of scripture have tried to convey before today’s theories of time-travel and the multiverse ever existed.The cross of Christ was an outside-of-time event.

Biblical Greek has two common words for time: chronos (chronological time) and kairos (now time). “Kairos” means something like “everything everywhere all at once.” And Kairos is used more often by writers of the New Testament than chronos because kairos describes God’s timing; eternal timing. Outside of chronological time kinda stuff. The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans, “At just the right Kairos… Christ died for the ungodly.” Christ’s death is a kairos moment, a now moment, a God-moment outside of time and space.

Baptism is a Christian’s entry point into the eternal sermon of Holy Saturday while in this life. Baptism allows us to begin living into Kairos time, now. And that’s really good news for us. But what’s really really good news for all people, The Gospel news, is that whenever and wherever human beings are, dead or alive, Christ always finds them.