At that time Mary got ready and hurried to the hill country of Judea … (Luke 1:39).

If you ask me what time it is, my answer comes easily: I look at my watch, a calendar, my phone, my microwave, car dashboard, time and temp signs outside banks.  It’s always easy to know what time it is!

Or is it?  What happens if we change the question, from what time is it? to whose time is it?  Who gets to tell us what time it is?  As we know, the shopping malls are happy to tell us the time: time to buy and buy, on easy credit terms!  We have national calendars, ethnic calendars, school and sports calendars, political calendars, seasonal and agricultural calendars – there are lots of voices telling us what time it is.

Whoever tells you what time it is is also telling you whose time it is.

As we enter this new Advent week, continuing to make our way towards and into the Unspeakable Joy of the Good News story, we encounter Mary and Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-45).  Young, frightened and ‘irregularly’ pregnant Mary; old, astonished and impossibly pregnant Elizabeth.  Each woman’s body is keeping its time; each woman is responding to a word, a promise from outside of time that has come to expression and fruition within time, within these two women’s wombs.

If you asked around, asked what time is it? Mary and Elizabeth’s friends and neighbors would have assured you of the obvious: given that a formal marriage had not yet occurred, it wasn’t yet time for Mary to have a baby, and it was far, far past time for Elizabeth.  

If you asked Mary and Elizabeth, I think they would have spoken about whose time it was.  

Each woman allowed the Lord to keep the time and tell the time, because they understood to whom time belongs.  When God says it’s time, it is time!

“At that time” Mary hurried to her relative Elizabeth’s – and stayed there for three months!  God’s timing can upset our normal schedules, agendas and rhythms.  Two improbably pregnant women needed each other, needed respite from the wagging tongues and skeptical looks from neighbors and relatives, needed this tiny Community of the Impossible.  

Advent likewise offers us respite from the commands and demands of the Season of Selling that begins earlier and earlier with every passing year.

And Advent time invites us into a community that marks and keeps time differently, because we know whose time it is.

How is God inviting you to explore whose time it is, rather than what time it is?  How might you mark time differently, allowing God’s marks to mark this time?  What would you hope to have time – more time – for?