Release Date: March 11th, 2026What Time Is It?
- by Carmen Brubacher
The well-known, wise words of Ecclesiastes gift us with a sense that everything belongs. Everything has a time and place. They offer a sense of order and rhythm for life’s vast experiences.
“There’s a season for everything and a time for every matter under the heavens: a time for giving birth and a time for dying,… a time for crying and a time for laughing, a time for mourning and a time for dancing, a time for keeping and a time for throwing away...” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).
The words of the sage find their way into my heart, particularly at “timely” funerals. Funerals remembering a beloved who has come to the end of a long life.
But what about “untimely” events or all the things that happen in between these binaries? What happens if you don’t quite feel like laughing or crying or doing both at the same time!? If you don’t know if it’s time to keep or time to throw away. When it actually doesn’t feel like it is someone’s time to die or even to be born. How do you know when it’s time to tear down or build up? I would like to talk to Ecclesiastes’ sage about this!
Do we deliberately step into the wilderness or simply find ourselves there?
I wonder if this “in-between” time is wilderness time. Time when we are in the in-between and it is hard to speak, act or pray with clarity. God’s beloved people left the land of slavery at a particular time and looked forward to the time of arriving in a new land. But what happened between? They spent time in the wilderness. Jesus was clearly baptized at a particular time and then there was a time to choose his disciples and begin his ministry. But what happened in between? He spent time in the wilderness. In between Epiphany and Easter, the season of Lent offers us space and time to be in the wilderness.
In-between times can feel like wilderness times: disorienting, ambiguous, testing, timeless. Do we deliberately step into the wilderness or simply find ourselves there? How do we know when it’s time to leave? What do we need in this wild time? Even when we may not feel it, God is present. Through manna, fire, clouds, a tent of meeting, beasts and angels. God is with us in the in-between times in the wilderness.
In-between times are valuable times, if we can settle in for the journey.
What time is it for you? For your congregation? For the larger church? Maybe it’s time of a clear new beginning. Or maybe something is clearly ending. Or maybe you find yourself in an in-between time, wandering in the wilderness. In-between times are valuable times, if we can settle in for the journey. The time may feel open, but it is not wasted. It may feel lonely, but there are often companions to be found.
Perhaps, if we want to follow the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, we might say there is a time for wandering and a time for clarity. And maybe both can happen in the wilderness. There is a time for every matter under heaven.
- Carmen Brubacher is on the pastoral team at Waterloo North Mennonite Church.