W. Arthur Kale - "Calendar Watching" (January 3, 1965)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | For pulling down old calendars | 0:19 |
and putting up new ones | 0:25 | |
on the wall, | 0:29 | |
on the desk, | 0:31 | |
and in one's wallet, | 0:34 | |
this simple familiar exercise | 0:37 | |
reminds us that in the affairs of individuals | 0:41 | |
and groups and institutions, | 0:46 | |
the calendar is central. | 0:50 | |
Man is the creature | 0:55 | |
fated to be, among other destinies, | 0:58 | |
a calendar watcher. | 1:03 | |
On the first Sunday of a new calendar year, | 1:09 | |
a year designated by the numerals one, | 1:15 | |
nine, | 1:20 | |
six, | 1:22 | |
five, | 1:23 | |
an appropriate message for man, | 1:25 | |
the calendar watcher | 1:29 | |
is found, I believe, in the 90th Psalm. | 1:32 | |
This prayer hymn, | 1:40 | |
familiar to millions, | 1:44 | |
with its unusual imagery, | 1:48 | |
with its sincerity of spirit, | 1:52 | |
with its stateliness of style, | 1:56 | |
with its depth and richness of thought, | 2:01 | |
is truly a mature man's | 2:06 | |
confession of faith. | 2:10 | |
Its message has brought steadiness to the wavering, | 2:14 | |
direction to the bewildered and the lost, | 2:21 | |
comfort to the sorrowing. | 2:26 | |
Its famous lines are quoted frequently. | 2:30 | |
Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place | 2:36 | |
in all generations. | 2:43 | |
Lord, from everlasting to everlasting, | 2:47 | |
Thou art God. | 2:52 | |
Lord, before the mountains were brought forth, | 2:55 | |
forever Thou hast formed the earth and the world. | 2:59 | |
Truly Thou art God. | 3:04 | |
Lord, a thousand years | 3:07 | |
are but as yesterday. | 3:11 | |
A thousand years are but as a watch | 3:14 | |
in the night, | 3:19 | |
approximately four hours, | 3:21 | |
the equivalent of a millennium. | 3:25 | |
Like all great literature, | 3:29 | |
this psalm never seems never to grow old. | 3:31 | |
It never ceases to have its relevance | 3:36 | |
in the thought and life of man. | 3:39 | |
It never fails to speak powerfully | 3:43 | |
to all who will listen. | 3:47 | |
On this the first Sunday of a new calendar year, | 3:51 | |
I invite you to listen to this great section | 3:56 | |
of the book of Psalms that declares, | 4:00 | |
first of all, that man cannot be satisfied | 4:04 | |
with the temporary | 4:09 | |
or with the evanescent. | 4:11 | |
As we pull down the last page of an old calendar, | 4:15 | |
and set up the fresh one | 4:21 | |
at this season, | 4:24 | |
we are again reminded, | 4:26 | |
as the psalmist himself was reminded | 4:30 | |
of man's transitory life, | 4:33 | |
man understands himself in terms of only a moment | 4:37 | |
of existence here on the planet Earth. | 4:44 | |
Man finds himself imprisoned | 4:49 | |
in the house of the contemporaneous. | 4:53 | |
Sometimes longing, indeed praying, for deliverance, | 4:58 | |
and yet, limited and confined | 5:03 | |
to his own period. | 5:06 | |
He is absorbed in the routines | 5:09 | |
of his daily affairs. | 5:12 | |
He is enmeshed in the complexities | 5:15 | |
of his responsibilities. | 5:18 | |
At times, he is perennially, | 5:22 | |
or he is perennially excited | 5:24 | |
about his achievements, | 5:28 | |
his technical advancement made possible. | 5:31 | |
He is persuaded by his own genius | 5:37 | |
and his own industry. | 5:40 | |
Nevertheless, through it all, | 5:44 | |
he is the lonely soul. | 5:48 | |
He is the tired individual. | 5:52 | |
He is the person who clutches | 5:57 | |
after some kind of security, | 5:59 | |
who hungers after peace of mind, | 6:02 | |
after satisfying fellowship with others. | 6:05 | |
He is withal, at certain intense moments, | 6:11 | |
plainly afraid. | 6:17 | |
He confesses that his wistful despairing hopes | 6:21 | |
are often quite unreal. | 6:27 | |
He knows he is allowed but a brief span, | 6:32 | |
his threescore years and ten, | 6:35 | |
more or less; | 6:39 | |
or a few more indeed, | 6:41 | |
and yet, at best, they are, | 6:43 | |
in the words of the psalmist, | 6:45 | |
years of labor and sorrow, | 6:48 | |
years of disappointment. | 6:53 | |
Through it all confesses this ancient poet, | 6:56 | |
there is there abides in the heart, | 7:02 | |
in the very depths of man, | 7:06 | |
one tremendous and passionate yearning; | 7:08 | |
namely, to be | 7:14 | |
and to do something | 7:17 | |
that will outlast | 7:20 | |
time itself. | 7:23 | |
To this creature, | 7:28 | |
watching the calendar | 7:31 | |
and feeling his creatureliness | 7:34 | |
with growing intensity | 7:38 | |
as the years come and go, | 7:42 | |
to him, | 7:45 | |
Psalm number 90 | 7:48 | |
speaks a message that | 7:52 | |
cannot be dated | 7:55 | |
by the calendar. | 7:59 | |
Man says this message | 8:02 | |
has, in all generations, | 8:05 | |
found his dwelling place | 8:09 | |
not merely in the familiar scenes | 8:12 | |
of his earthly abode, | 8:16 | |
and not among the transitory existence, | 8:18 | |
or items of existence | 8:23 | |
with which he is familiar | 8:24 | |
and is daily associated. | 8:26 | |
He finds his dwelling place in God. | 8:29 | |
This is a message man does not | 8:34 | |
and cannot speak to himself. | 8:37 | |
The wisdom of the day | 8:42 | |
or the vast accumulated store of knowledge | 8:46 | |
recorded day by day, | 8:50 | |
year by year, | 8:54 | |
age by age, | 8:57 | |
does not speak | 8:59 | |
to man's deepest needs. | 9:02 | |
Psalm number 90 proclaims | 9:05 | |
that although God contrasts with man, | 9:09 | |
He is man's | 9:15 | |
dwelling place. | 9:19 | |
God is older than time | 9:21 | |
and above all time, | 9:25 | |
while man is bound by time. | 9:29 | |
God is deathless; | 9:34 | |
man is mortal. | 9:38 | |
God is full; | 9:41 | |
man is empty. | 9:44 | |
Yet despite that contrast, | 9:47 | |
God is man's | 9:50 | |
dwelling place. | 9:53 | |
He is the abode of man | 9:55 | |
in his transitoriness. | 9:58 | |
He is the head of the household, | 10:02 | |
which is man. | 10:06 | |
Thus this ancient thinker | 10:10 | |
and poet and singer | 10:15 | |
would have man turn from his thoughts | 10:19 | |
of mortality and emptiness | 10:23 | |
to a great act of prayerful faith. | 10:27 | |
Who can teach man the true lessons of life? | 10:34 | |
None but God Himself. | 10:40 | |
So the psalmist in one verse | 10:43 | |
urges man to pray, | 10:46 | |
teach us to number our days, | 10:50 | |
that we may get a heart | 10:56 | |
of wisdom. | 11:00 | |
Here is the ancient poet declaring | 11:04 | |
that man, watching his calendar, | 11:07 | |
also discovers that the number of days | 11:13 | |
is not as important as the meaning | 11:19 | |
of all that the days bring. | 11:25 | |
Let some bureau of vital statistics | 11:31 | |
record and interpret the mathematics of man's existence. | 11:37 | |
The psalmist calls men to consider the meaning | 11:45 | |
of existence. | 11:50 | |
There is no season, | 11:52 | |
no day, no calendar year, | 11:55 | |
that does not offer a time for reflection | 11:58 | |
upon the purposes of life; | 12:03 | |
a time and opportunity for participation | 12:06 | |
in some great learning experience. | 12:10 | |
As man takes, no doubt, the brevity of life, | 12:17 | |
he also considers | 12:23 | |
what are the deep and abiding realities | 12:25 | |
with which he is associated, | 12:32 | |
the great causes to which he may devote | 12:35 | |
his days. | 12:41 | |
So teach us to count | 12:43 | |
our days, | 12:47 | |
not to calculate their total number, | 12:50 | |
but to measure their significance; | 12:54 | |
count the days | 12:58 | |
that, on the surface, are but routine, | 13:00 | |
and which appear to be under the control | 13:07 | |
of prosaic matters. | 13:10 | |
Here is man in his family, | 13:14 | |
and the events of family life | 13:18 | |
occur on schedule, | 13:20 | |
birth, | 13:24 | |
childhood, | 13:25 | |
youth, | 13:27 | |
maturity, | 13:28 | |
old age, | 13:30 | |
death, | 13:32 | |
eating, | 13:35 | |
sleeping, | 13:36 | |
buying, | 13:38 | |
selling, | 13:40 | |
laughter, | 13:43 | |
crying, | 13:45 | |
conversation, | 13:47 | |
periods of silence, | 13:49 | |
going to work, | 13:53 | |
returning from work, | 13:55 | |
preparations for cold weather, | 13:58 | |
preparations for hot weather, | 14:02 | |
day by day, | 14:05 | |
year by year, | 14:08 | |
for each member of the family, | 14:11 | |
life starts, | 14:15 | |
life develops, | 14:18 | |
life ends. | 14:20 | |
Is there nothing more to be said? | 14:23 | |
Listen to the ancient poet | 14:27 | |
who affirms that the meaning of it all | 14:29 | |
is not to be found | 14:33 | |
in the recitation of the facts, | 14:34 | |
but rather in the great and abiding relationships | 14:38 | |
of all that happens | 14:43 | |
to the presence | 14:47 | |
and the purposes | 14:49 | |
of Him who considers a thousand years | 14:51 | |
as but yesterday | 14:58 | |
when it is passed. | 15:01 | |
Religion, as interpreted by this 90th Psalm, | 15:04 | |
would have man in every era, | 15:09 | |
in every year, | 15:13 | |
turn his thoughts toward the God | 15:15 | |
who is over all, | 15:19 | |
and interpret all that happens | 15:22 | |
in family and personal life, | 15:25 | |
all that takes place, say, in a full millennium, | 15:28 | |
as but yesterday. | 15:35 | |
Thus, | 15:40 | |
one single individual | 15:42 | |
or a family or indeed a generation | 15:46 | |
of men and women on this planet | 15:50 | |
may acquire a new dimension | 15:53 | |
for life, | 15:59 | |
not the dimension of the temporary | 16:01 | |
or of the contemporaneous. | 16:05 | |
Man finds he has a new destiny | 16:08 | |
that can be measured only | 16:12 | |
in terms of the Creator's nature, | 16:14 | |
which is eternal. | 16:18 | |
Count the days that are prosaic | 16:22 | |
and routine and dull, | 16:26 | |
that grind away and beat upon us. | 16:29 | |
Yet see those days | 16:34 | |
through the eyes of Him who is ageless | 16:38 | |
and eternal. | 16:45 | |
Or count the days when the unexpected happens. | 16:48 | |
I think this morning of the king of Babylon and his princes | 16:54 | |
who are feasting with hearts light and joyous. | 16:58 | |
When suddenly there appeared the hand | 17:05 | |
and the handwriting on a wall, | 17:09 | |
foretelling the end of the feast | 17:14 | |
and the end of the king | 17:17 | |
and the end of the kingdom. | 17:19 | |
Life brings its periods | 17:22 | |
of unexpected twists of fortune | 17:24 | |
and turn in the course. | 17:30 | |
Many of you join me in recalling | 17:35 | |
that in the early hours of December 7 in the year, | 17:39 | |
the calendar year 1941, | 17:44 | |
life was somewhat routine for many of us. | 17:47 | |
It was a Sunday. | 17:52 | |
Some of us were planning to attend church | 17:55 | |
and worship as usual. | 17:58 | |
Some of us took it to be the usual holiday | 18:02 | |
and plan for rest or for recreation, | 18:06 | |
or the trip to the family reunion, | 18:10 | |
or some other plan that had been made. | 18:13 | |
But before the sun was set | 18:17 | |
on that particular day, | 18:19 | |
the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor | 18:21 | |
had been flashed across the earth, | 18:24 | |
and life took on a new meaning, | 18:26 | |
and the relationships we had in family | 18:30 | |
and across the nation, | 18:33 | |
and international relationships as well, | 18:35 | |
were seriously and permanently changed. | 18:38 | |
The unexpected occurred. | 18:42 | |
Count the days when the unexpected happens, | 18:47 | |
but see the unexpected through the eyes | 18:51 | |
of Him who abides. | 18:54 | |
Let Him be the dwelling place of man, | 18:58 | |
whatever happens. | 19:02 | |
Count the days when life needs explaining. | 19:05 | |
I think of Job, | 19:14 | |
man of wealth, | 19:18 | |
man of prominence, | 19:21 | |
a man who enjoyed the affection of his family, | 19:24 | |
who had achieved a measure of | 19:28 | |
prominence and stability | 19:32 | |
and permanence, he thought, in community affairs. | 19:34 | |
Yet in another hour, | 19:41 | |
observe him with his fortune gone, | 19:42 | |
with the affection of his family | 19:45 | |
scattered or dissipated, | 19:49 | |
with life shifted, | 19:51 | |
and there the wretch, | 19:53 | |
the wretched Job in his suffering | 19:55 | |
wrestled with the problem, | 19:59 | |
the mystery of suffering, | 20:01 | |
and life | 20:04 | |
needed explanation. | 20:09 | |
This happens to us all. | 20:13 | |
So teach us to number our days, | 20:16 | |
that in the midst of the mysteries, | 20:22 | |
the puzzles, the baffling days | 20:25 | |
that come and go, | 20:30 | |
we may be associated with Him who abides. | 20:34 | |
Count the days when great events are shaping. | 20:41 | |
Perhaps we give too much thought | 20:50 | |
to the calendar | 20:54 | |
as it is presently arranged. | 20:56 | |
We call January the first month of the new year. | 21:00 | |
It could very well be the last month | 21:06 | |
of the mos significant period of one's life. | 21:09 | |
Or the beginning of new era | 21:14 | |
might possibly be this coming April | 21:16 | |
rather than January. | 21:18 | |
Our mechanical arrangement | 21:21 | |
does not fit into the neat patterns. | 21:25 | |
This neat pattern of mechanical arrangement | 21:30 | |
does not fit the needs of man. | 21:33 | |
As you look backward, | 21:37 | |
one recognizes certain pinnacle years | 21:40 | |
that stand above the ordinary levels | 21:44 | |
of the centuries | 21:49 | |
like high mountain peaks | 21:50 | |
above the ranges around them. | 21:53 | |
In the Bible, one of the pinnacle eras | 21:58 | |
is the period of the Exodus. | 22:01 | |
When not only did enslaved people | 22:05 | |
achieve their freedom from bondage, | 22:09 | |
but a new nation was born, | 22:13 | |
and a people entered into a great covenant relationship | 22:17 | |
with their God. | 22:22 | |
And around that covenant relationship | 22:25 | |
has been built the mighty faith | 22:27 | |
into which many of us of this very day have entered, | 22:31 | |
and to which we turn to find the meaning | 22:37 | |
of our great religious traditions | 22:41 | |
here in our Western world | 22:45 | |
in the modern centuries. | 22:47 | |
In the Bible also is reported | 22:51 | |
the coming of our Lord | 22:53 | |
in the great event that we describe as the Advent, | 22:56 | |
the coming of God Himself, | 23:00 | |
and a new covenant was established | 23:03 | |
between man and God. | 23:06 | |
You could supply for yourselves | 23:11 | |
many other examples of great discoveries, | 23:13 | |
of great events as they are foretold | 23:17 | |
and as they shape up and as they occur. | 23:21 | |
Some of us feel that perhaps we are today | 23:26 | |
upon the threshold of another great era. | 23:29 | |
We're struggling to find a name for it. | 23:35 | |
Already we're using the term the Space Era, | 23:39 | |
though we're not sure that is an accurate term, | 23:43 | |
nor are we certain | 23:47 | |
that it will serve our purposes very long. | 23:48 | |
Whatever we may call it, | 23:53 | |
this is no ordinary time. | 23:55 | |
Let us be wise enough to count the days. | 23:58 | |
As we stand here expectantly, | 24:04 | |
not only at the beginning of a calendar year, | 24:08 | |
but at the beginning of another era | 24:11 | |
in man's life on the planet Earth. | 24:15 | |
Do you recall James Hilton's "Lost Horizon"? | 24:21 | |
Think with me for a moment | 24:29 | |
of the words spoken in a Tibetan lamasery | 24:31 | |
by the head lama, | 24:35 | |
addressed to a person called Conway, | 24:39 | |
a British visitor whom the head lama | 24:44 | |
had chosen for his own successor. | 24:48 | |
To Conway, the lama said: | 24:51 | |
The years for you here will come and go, | 24:53 | |
and you will pass from fleshly enjoyments | 25:00 | |
into austerer, | 25:03 | |
but no less satisfying realms. | 25:06 | |
You may lose the keenness of muscle and appetite, | 25:09 | |
but there will be gain to match your loss. | 25:15 | |
You will achieve a calmness and profundity, | 25:20 | |
a ripeness and wisdom, | 25:25 | |
and a clear enchantment of memory. | 25:28 | |
Most precious of all, | 25:33 | |
you will have time. | 25:36 | |
That rare and lovely gift | 25:39 | |
that your Western countries have lost, | 25:43 | |
the more they pursue it. | 25:46 | |
With that quotation from the writing | 25:52 | |
of James Hilton in the background, | 25:54 | |
may I address two or three direct questions | 25:58 | |
in this concluding moment | 26:03 | |
to each of you, my fellow calendar watchers? | 26:06 | |
For us, too, the years come and go. | 26:12 | |
We also are conscious of our losses. | 26:17 | |
We know we cannot return to our former days. | 26:20 | |
What gains do we have to match the losses? | 26:26 | |
Any calmness? | 26:33 | |
Any profundity? | 26:36 | |
Any ripeness and wisdom? | 26:39 | |
Any enchanting memories? | 26:44 | |
Are we aware of ripening | 26:49 | |
and deepening relationships with Him | 26:51 | |
who measured a thousand years | 26:55 | |
in terms of a watch in the night? | 26:58 | |
My fellow mortals, | 27:04 | |
are you listening at the beginning of a new year | 27:07 | |
to Him who is from everlasting to everlasting, | 27:12 | |
who speaks the truth that abides, | 27:18 | |
and who promises | 27:24 | |
the one and abiding place, | 27:26 | |
the one sure abiding place | 27:31 | |
to all | 27:38 | |
men? | 27:41 | |
Let us pray. | 27:44 | |
O Thou who art the eternal God, | 27:51 | |
Thou who art from everlasting to everlasting, | 27:56 | |
behold us as we stand uncertainly, | 28:02 | |
and yet expectantly, at this moment, | 28:06 | |
not knowing what tomorrow shall bring to us, | 28:10 | |
and yet certain that whatever comes, | 28:14 | |
we can rest | 28:18 | |
in Thee. | 28:21 | |
Supply us therefore with the needed strength of body, | 28:24 | |
the needed clarity of mind, | 28:30 | |
and the needed dedication of spirit, | 28:32 | |
to match all that this new year | 28:37 | |
shall require. | 28:42 | |
In the spirit and name of Jesus Christ our Lord. | 28:45 | |
And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, | 28:51 | |
and the love of God the Father, | 28:55 | |
and the communion of the Holy Spirit | 28:58 | |
be with you all. | 29:01 |
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