Times or Seasons

Not for You to Know Times or Seasons.  In north-central Ohio, where we lived for five considerably (physically) cold years, there was a local saying: “Three more snows after the forsythia blooms.” Before we learned that discouraging proverb partway through our tenure there, it had been so encouraging to see the forsythia bloom. Its friendly yellow flower was not so encouraging after we learned it! Through what seemed like four consecutive months of cold, the forsythia emerged only to say: “Don’t put your big coat away for another month!”

So, twenty years later, we are still apprehensive to trust the forsythia. Even now, as it is smiling at me through the window, I wonder: is this a devilish smirk or an angelic grin? With temperatures in the 80s tomorrow, I think I will risk a little springtime hope. But I will not put my big coat away, just out of an abundance of caution.

Severely, even annually flawed, the forsythia is still a far better meteorologist than the human. We don’t know the times or seasons, nor should we attempt to map out God’s next move, because Jesus directly told us to resist the urge: "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). With the earthquakes in Turkey, the 24/7 worship service at Asbury University, the first anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion into Ukraine, the anarchy in Haiti, the homicide rates in Chicago and New Orleans, the microplastics in the ocean, and the reminder to schedule that next screening with the doctor—we don’t know the future. Either we lack the capacity to know or we lack the wisdom to handle such knowledge, or both, but Jesus’ point is clear: we don’t need to know. The Father knows sufficiently well and we know the Father. Instead of giving us data points about the future (beyond all the data already given in the Scriptures), Jesus gives us purpose: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

Oh, right. That! Why do we so easily forget about that in our attempts to interpret forsythias and when it is time to pack away the big coat for another nine months? I don’t know, but the Lord knows! So, whether the Lord returns tomorrow or in ten thousand tomorrows, the task is clear: do what you have been remade to be, witness.