Monday, March 18, 2024
Psalm 118: 1
1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his mercy endures forever.
How long is forever?
forever (adv): all future time, always; continually; lasting or permanent
Consider for a moment the energy we expend daily in our search for forever. We want our relationships to last, our nations to stand, our status to remain stable, our advantages to continue to exist. We want life to continue, but only in those ways we choose. If our situation in life is impossible, if we have no resources, if we find ourselves in want, only then do we seek an end to forever. Seek something new. Something better. Then, as if those two poles of existence – strength and weakness – were not enough, we must consider pride. Pride never has enough. Pride considers only its own strength, its own status, its own situation. Pride seeks endless change. More power. More money. More authority. Strangely, though, pride is also perhaps the greatest seeker of forever, for it wants the self to exist, and it believes it can create its own perfect dynasty.
Here, then, is the paradox: Forever can be beautiful or hellish. The terrible problem lies in humanity’s bad choices.
Humanity learned in some distant past, one so long ago it remains unrecorded, how to record the passing of time. How to tell human history. The vision of forever, when viewed from that perspective, is grim.
So far, history records endless struggle, division, repression, aggression, and death. Every empire that ever was fell eventually. And forever seems to be getting shorter, not longer. The pharaohs reigned about 9,000 years, the Assyrians for about 5,000, the Babylonians about 900. The earliest known civilization, the Sumerian, survived about two millennia. Romans ruled for one. The Aztecs and Incas also lasted about 1,000 years, and the British empire only made it 400. In China, the Zhou dynasty – longest-lived of all – survived about 900 years.
America is 248 years old and already believes itself the most powerful nation in history. Pride speaks anew. As if power assured life.
Conversely, native tribes consisting of small, disorganized, and isolated groups, have survived in Amazon wilderness for about 13,000 years. Their systems have outlasted the mightiest civilizations ever created. The garden, it seems, holds up better than civilization.
Now, civilization threatens their forever. The Bible tells the repeated tale of humanity’s failure to create a forever.
Reading the prophets – historians in their own way – can be grim business. Most Christians don’t like to spend a lot of time considering prophets, for they speak clearly about sin and death. Yet every real prophet who ever existed has spoken just as clearly about where one really can find forever.
Jeremiah or some other prophet spoke it clearly in the middle of Lamentations.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore, I will hope in him.”
For the Lord will not reject forever.
Although he causes grief, he will have compassion,
according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
(Lamentations 3: 22-24; 31)
Choose, therefore. Life or death. We find forever in only one place.
Hymn of the day: Great is Thy Faithfulness. Online at Rossford UMC - Media.
Rev. Lawrence Keeler
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