Time Here And Now; Then Time Eternal

I could see it on his wrist. It was silver or stainless steel. Not a fancy digital one that was waterproof to so many metres, but an analogue version. Old-fashioned you could say. But it honestly told the time. I reckon the hands had turned around many times measuring the minutes and hours and so the days and years.

It was trusted and reliable. He had looked at it many times in the previous few days. He was waiting for something or maybe somebody? He didn’t say. The time had seemed to pass almost too slowly.

The hands on this watch showed twenty-five to four in the afternoon when I first noticed it. Definitely not 3:35pm. ‘Noticed’ is not a good enough word. I was gripped by the fact that it was ticking away counting the minutes. It was a counting that you could not hear, only see.

I could see his arm. It was unmoving. The skin was sallow and the wrist wasted with loss of weight and illness.

I looked further into this man’s face. His eyes were shut, his mouth open as though sleeping.

He was lying in bed, and his family were watching him, and quietly chatting and weeping.

I could see his wrist again. The watch was silently ticking. The pulse in the man’s arm was silent too, but not ticking.

Had this man’s waiting and watching come to a grand finale or just petered out? Time had not changed, but in another way time had stopped and eternity was here with all of us.

Had this man passed from death to life? Would he need his watch and a reminder about time?

His son grasped his wrist and read a verse that had been tucked away in the credit card folder—a plain dark-coloured leather folder that held a secret to this man.

‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.’ II Cor. 5:17

That was what we were seeing. A man had died in Christ! In another way death could not touch him even though the ticking had stopped.  He was in life—full glorious life!

Was he hoping to see his wife who had died before? Yes, I know he did. But he would be taken by Christ into the very heart of the Father whose love never fails, whose love has made provision for guilt and shame to be gone in Christ, and for the new rich life to be full.

The watch ticks on. Someone will surely wind it up and use it. It is rich with memories of what was done in the time given.

The watch ticks on telling each one of us that life is more than day following day.

There is only ‘now’ to be engulfed in the love of the Father and the Son. Only now to lay down our own desires and pleasures and know life in Christ. To see the new come as the old sin-filled life is destroyed in the burning love of God.

The watch tells us its story, and it tells us it will not tick forever.