Dates and Times

When Jesus spoke to his disciples for the last time, he spoke to them about the Kingdom of God, the reign of God’s love in the world. True to form, they misunderstood him. Their thoughts went immediately, not to love, but self-preservation. “Lord, has the time come for you to free us and restore our kingdom?” they asked.

Notice the pronoun of choice: “Our” kingdom, not “Thy” kingdom, as we often recite in the Lord’s Prayer. The only power structure they could understand was one in which they benefited, and their only conceivable outcome was one in which they landed on top of the heap as the cosmos crashed to the ground.

So they must have been disappointed when Jesus provided an emphatic answer to their question: “The Father alone sets those dates and times. They are not for you to know, but you will receive Power and be my witnesses…