The question is simple enough. “What time is it?” 

On the clock or calendar, the answer is clear. In life, however, it all depends upon who you are and where—you think—you are going. 

The dying speak of time differently than most of us. 

Often, when they first learn of a terminal illness, time becomes something to be marshaled along with medical interventions. “My doctors and I are going to beat this!” This is still time as most of us experience it, only accelerated. We want something of the future; we will go out and get it. And who can fault the dying for presuming, as we all do, that what we want of life is also the will of God? 

Yet one day, the doctors say that a cure is not possible. Then time ceases to be something commanded. Now it controls us, and it does not explain itself. Those very close to death no longer speak of marshaling time. They seem even to stop measuring it, at least in their speech. Time is now the master, not the servant. 

St. Ignatius Loyola suggested that we pray with Scripture by entering its scenes in our imagination. So, for a moment, let us be John the Baptist. What time is it for him? 

Whatever its duration, John’s ministry is closing. The heady days of its dawn are done. Does the Baptist sense that the powers he opposes are beginning to coalesce against him, to seek his destruction?

In the Gospel of John, this is the second time Jesus encounters John the Baptist, on the day following his baptism. The Baptist has had time to consider this man, to ask what his advent means. And now John tells his followers that he sees his own descent in the rise of Christ.

He is the one of whom I said,

“A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.’
I did not know him,
but the reason why I came baptizing with water
was that he might be made known to Israel” (Jn 1:30-31).

St. Ignatius suggested that we use our imaginations to interrogate the Gospels so that they, in turn, might question our lives, our sense of self. Sooner or later, we all become the Baptist. We are no longer climbing; we have begun our descent. Days on the calendar are easy enough to estimate, though most of us are closer to death than birth long before we begin to call ourselves middle-aged. 

But our days pass through many other “descents.”

  • We have lost a partner who will not be replaced.
  • The trajectory of our career is now clear.
  • Money is no longer a promise of what we will earn; it is what we have left.
  • We are no longer the center of our children’s lives. 
  • We must leave our homes.
  • We have a terminal illness.
  • So many of our loved ones have entered the shadows of death (Ps 23:4).

Whatever the circumstance, the calendar is of no avail. These days are not announced. Indeed, much time might pass before we admit that they have indeed come. 

Sooner or later, all of us become the Baptist, the one who begins to decline. But descent need not be into darkness. It can be into the immeasurable depths of God’s love revealed in Jesus. 

Note well how the Baptist acclaims Christ’s coming. And do not let a familiar title of Jesus pass without inquiring into its origin:

Behold, the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29).

Only in the wake of John’s Gospel is Jesus called the “Lamb of God” (Jn 1:29, 1:36, 1 Pet 1:19, & Rev 5:6). A lamb is a young sheep, once sacrificed before its prime. In calling Jesus the Lamb of God, John acknowledges that his destiny, his own story, is being lifted into that of the Christ. How so?

We descend whether we want to or not. Our physical declines are written into the law of nature. But our spiritual descents, those which birth despair, are the result of sin. Christ, however, freely enters the realm of sin and death while he is still in his ascendancy. He is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

The Baptist is a young man stalked by slaughter. His hope beyond death lies in this other young one, the Lamb, who will willingly sacrifice himself. Young John’s acknowledgment of Jesus is not unlike that of old Simeon in the Gospel of Luke, who gently goes down into his final days, having seen that the darkness is conquered by light.

Now, Master, you may let your servant go
in peace, according to your word,
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in sight of all the peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and glory for your people Israel (2:29-32).

What time is it? Again, the answer depends upon who you are and where you think you are going. The better question might be: how much time do you need? The Gospel is quite clear. Only enough for you to join John in saying, wherever you find yourself in life, 

Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God (Jn 1:34).

The Rev. Terrance W. Klein is a priest of the Diocese of Dodge City and author of Vanity Faith.