Star Wars™ Jesus: The Jedi Concept of Time

By Caleb Grimes
Winepress Publishing

CBN.com - Ben Kenobi is so awesome.

Here is how he reacts to being guided into action by the Force: He ponders Princess Leia's hologram message, turns to Luke and says, “You must learn the ways of the Force if you're to come with me to Alderaan.”

Ha! The fact that Luke is present with him in his abode after all the years does not seem to surprise Ben Kenobi, and that Luke will go with him to Alderaan is a foregone conclusion! His immediate thought seems to be, “The time to train you has arrived, of course.” Ben's wisdom in recognizing the moving of the Force and the way in which he selflessly responds is a wonderful example of time being nothing and everything to a Jedi.

Ben and Yoda have each had years of isolation prior to the start of Luke’s training. The pace of life, whether fast or painfully slow, does not seem to be an issue. A Jedi is centered in a different sense of the passage of time.

When a Jedi asks, “What time is it?” he does not mean the hour of the clock. Instead, the question is, “has the fullness of time come for a certain thing to happen?” It is a good practice for us to ask, “What time is it?” in a similar quest for wisdom. The result is that we are able to start living according to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

We do not spend time with someone until the clock says it is time for us to go, but rather we spend the necessary time with every person that we need to spend. Within this context, love, communication, and relationships are more important than getting to the next place we are going in life. We focus instead on what it is we are to give to this person, or say to this person, or be to this person, and what they are to give or say or be to us.

This is a major way that God leads us and works in us. If we go strictly by the clock—think following the letter of the law—it is possible to miss what God is trying to say to us and do in us and be in us. Relationships with others are just one application. The Jedi seem to do all things with this view of time. Living in this way is to discover the purpose of time.

Throughout the Bible we read about the idea of a fullness of time.

The time came when the world was so wicked that God had to flood it out, and the time came for the Israelites to take the land that was promised them. Jesus came to us in the fullness of time for him to come, and he is coming back in the fullness of time. The time for something to happen is not bound by a clock.

Perhaps one of the reasons why God tells us we won’t know when Jesus will come back is that the fullness of time does not work like a clock, so the concept of when is more fluid than a simple counting of seconds. Therefore, the answer to when Christ is coming back is not a matter of counting time, but rather counting the fullness of God’s prophesies and the work that we are to do as his people. We are involved in the making and the determining of this kind of time.

Ben recognizes the fullness of time has come for Luke Skywalker to become a Jedi, and for himself to come out of exile. This, then, is a true metaphor for how God works in us.

Ecclesiastes, in the third chapter, teaches that there is a season for everything in order to show us that, paradoxically, there is order to life along with the meaninglessness. Then, Ecclesiastes, chapter 8, states that the wise man knows the proper time and procedure for every matter, just as Obi-Wan senses in his own situation.

When we ask ourselves “What time is it?” part of the wisdom in knowing the answer is having a selfless motivation. Ben has this, then seems to ask himself, “What is the next thing that needs to be done?”

In this way, Ben listens to the Force, and what he does or does not do is based on this concept of time.

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Related Devotion: Star Wars™ Jesus: Love Never Fails