Timing is huge, isn’t it? In deal-making. Athletics. Cooking. Careers. Politics. Relationships. Medicine. Child-rearing. Truth-telling.

So much of life, it seems, hinges on timing.

I wonder if you can look back today and see well-timed moments that clearly changed your life’s course? Are there for you, as there are for me, moments so profound that life could actually be book marked by them, labeling the events on either side as “before,” or “after?”

I’m thinking of a quiet moment alone on a beach in Amelia Island, Florida, well past midnight. Of one friend’s high school football accident. Of another’s eleventh hour visa to leave communist Romania. And of a kiss that wasn’t supposed to be the last one, but was.

Maybe you’re thinking of a chance word spoken to a stranger, or a request you said “yes” to instead of “no,” or a flight you missed, or a promise you broke that changed everything.

While we’re thinking of well-timed moments that effected great change, consider this one: a young hometown fellow stands in his synagogue, opens the holy writings, reads an ancient prophecy about the coming Jewish messiah, then declares: “Today…this scripture…has been fulfilled…in your hearing.”

Can you imagine it? Someone’s son, someone’s friend, someone’s pupil, apprentice, next-door neighbor, boyhood rival, secret crush, stands and declares himself the long-expected deliverer – the Christ – the very son of God?

Now there’s a moment!

The Bible tells us that Jesus came “in the fullness of time” – that is to say, at God’s appointed time – no sooner, and no later. With just a handful of words, the Son of God announced his arrival.

It was finally time. Time “to bring good news to the afflicted…to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord; and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn…giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning.” (Isaiah 61: 1-3)

And His hearers’ response to His timely announcement?

They ran Him out of town.

Although He was indeed the fulfillment of scripture, He was certainly not the fulfillment of their expectations. On that day, at that moment, the prophetic Word of God was embodied before them, and they weren’t buying it. They didn’t think much of His timing – or His claim!

The good news was – and still is! – the living, breathing Word of God arriving in the most moving of all tenses: the present tense.

Today, in your present-tense hearing and in mine, Jesus says: “I am the One you’ve been waiting for. I am here. Now. What will you do with Me?”

Today, consider His claim and answer carefully. Because timing is everything.

©Leigh McLeroy 2002