A TIME SUCH AS THIS

 

 

I studied the last week of the Saviour’s ministry reluctantly, not only because of His impending death but because I have savoured every morsel of fresh insight I received into Him this year. I saw the man, the Son, the God, and I did not want that to end. At times I felt that I was on the shores of Galilee in awe of the Galilean whom the people thronged for His mercy with hope to inhale His holiness into their souls. I reflected often on what it would have been like to be alive back then to see the rise of His fame and all the work He did that was given to Him of the Father (John 17:4) but I recoil at the memory of the cross. I know that I wept with the hosts of heaven when that time came. 

 

Neal A Maxwell defined the peopling of the earth in this way: “When we say God has a plan, He truly has a plan – not simply a grand scale, but for each of us as individuals, allocating some special talent to this dispensation and some to another. I regard God as the perfect personnel manager….after all, if you’ve got only one Abraham Lincoln, you’d better put him in that part in history when he’s most needed…..” (Deposition of a Disciple, p 46). A Jewish woman in exile, known as Esther, who married a king, is well known for her uncle’s prophetic advice to her that she was born for ‘such a time as this’, a time when she could prevent annihilation of all Jews in Persian empire (Esther 4:14).

 

We all know why Jesus came. His time had to be 2023 years ago when the conditions of the earth were perfect for His purpose. Because the Jewish iniquities, superstitions and hardness of heart were at its peak and because of it there was no other nation on earth that would crucify their God (2 N 10:3), the Meridian of Times was Christ’s time. The crescendo of Christ’s earthly purpose was suffering hence also the necessity of Roman Empire’s cross and the crucible of Calvary. 

 

I know I was not suited for the earthly experience in the Meridian of Times. I enjoy, with gratitude, having a voice in the world as a woman today and I draw strength from the promise the Saviour made through prophet Joel that in our day He will pour out His spirit upon all flesh and we women will prophesy and men shall dream dreams and see visions (Joel 2:28). It rends my heart with gratitude because I live for this. 

 

I was tempted my problems

To lay to Your charge;

I considered them acutely unfair.

Then you opened my heart

And showed me Your godly task,

Beyond human capacity to bear.

Knowing where you had gone

I would never have to go,

I sorrowed and sought

My arrogance to bury;

In humility I assent,

Your mortal burden,

So valiant, so holy,

I would never in this life

Have to carry.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Radiant Saviour by Greg Collins)