Through All Generations.

After my father’s recent death, my mother gave his pocket watch to me. The watch belonged to his father before him, and I have vague childhood memories of seeing my grandfather use it. No one knows how long it has been in the family, but we do know it is old enough to have been used by my great-grandfather. The watch has become a part of my life. I wind it each morning as I start my day. Yet it does more than track hours and minutes. It provides a sense of continuity and comfort for having kept time through the generations.

St. Paul, in his sermon in Acts, tells of the generations of Israel’s history. God led the people out of Egypt, through the wilderness, into the Promised Land. God provided leaders and kings. God’s covenant promises rested on David, and from David’s descendants came Jesus. Paul keeps track of time as he tells this history: forty years . . . four hundred and fifty years . . . another forty years. But Paul is doing more than watching the clock. Behind his chronology is the faithfulness of God culminating in the gift of Jesus Christ. Jesus was born, as Paul says in another place, “in the fullness of time” (Gal 4:4).

At the beginning of each new day when I wind that pocket watch, I have a sense of time that goes back years before me. In that passing time, the faithfulness of God is steadfast, an inheritance for us all. As the psalmist says: “The favors of the Lord I will sing forever; through all generations my mouth shall proclaim your faithfulness.”

Rev. Mark Strobel. Taken from Give Us This Day.

Rev.Mark Strobel is the dean of Gethsemane Episcopal Cathedral, Fargo, North Dakota, and is a Benedictine oblate of St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota.