Sunday was the day for reflecting on the baptism of Jesus. This year, the text was from Mark.

Mark reports that John the Baptist was quoting old prophecies and speaking of a glorious future. John was pointing to a millennia-long story.

We live in moments, and we often want answers in the moment.

But the story of the Bible is that God is working in the long-term, unfolding things slowly from our perspective. In fact, in our lifetime we may not understand the why and the how. Not in the lifetimes of our grandparents and grandchildren even.

That’s discouraging.

But it suggests to us that we might spend more time reflecting on the big story. Not to see how it will affect us tomorrow. Not for a quick magic formula. But to see the complexity of a story that started millennia before John, that John was part of, that unfolds for millennia after him.

And reflecting on the working of God forms us. In that reflection, we can learn something about time, something about bigger stories.

In contrast to the way we spend 30 seconds on each headline as we scroll by, in contrast to the ways our newsfeeds make the deaths of hundreds and the opinion of some celebrity and a cute cat have all the same value, spending time on the slow and deliberate and intentional unfolding of God’s work will teach us the value of life and of death and of each other and of God.

Or it might.

If we give it time.