The Tension of Ages

My family and I went out for a fall hike at Stinchfield Woods in Pinckney today. It was a beautiful hike (most of my excursions to Stinchfield have been) though my daughter’s little legs only lasted about two miles. As I drove home through downtown Dexter I passed a cemetery where sporadic, elegant maples towered above the manicured lawns and gravesites. The peak of autumn colors was still about a week or so away so only the slightest hints of their future glory shone in the afternoon sunlight. I marveled at height and breadth of the towering sentinels and wondered how many years it had taken for them to attain such heights. How many decades of drivers passed by or mourners wept in their shade?

The contrast for me was stark: here these stalwart organisms grew, towering up toward the sun outpacing their floral competition while beneath their boughs generations of humans lay buried beneath the good earth. It spoke to me of the transitory nature of man. Though long-lived for mammals, humans pale in comparison to other created things. Everything that encompasses this earthly life exists within the realm of our transitory nature. Our glories dissipate as we breathe our last (if not before) and the things we have accumulated pass into other hands, their meanings slowly lost over the years. We have little hope of any true, lasting impact even among those who we have loved. Eventually, monuments and memories fail and even the most world-shifting impacts become footnotes to history before they too are forgotten to the ages.

As morbid and futile as all this sounds, there is freedom in our transitory state too. All of the trials we struggle with are a breeze that blows but for a moment. All of the strife of this world will pass. The earth-shaking decisions and choices are mere bumps in the road of redemptive history. For those who trust in Christ, even the eventuality of the cessation of life is not final. For us, the comfort that comes in knowing the frailty and ephemerality of man outpaces the momentary troubles of the day, for we will rise.

As we in America struggle with the uncertainty and outright disgust of another presidential election, there remains a joy in knowing that these troubles, as mighty and desperate as they seem, will pass. History will continue. New crises will arise, new joys will be known. As we struggle with the pain and scars that are born from the innate sinfulness of man (there is no real denying that in our current age is there?) there comfort arises when we realize that no moment of time escapes the sight of God and that our history is bound to Christs’. One day, at the closing of our eyes or from the glimmer in the heavens, this age will pass away; our sorrows will be borne and we will experience the freedom and knowledge that comes in the presence of Christ. This, in no way, trivializes our time on this earth, in fact, it is the only way affecting change, calling out sin, or improving the human condition. Yet, it is not in our hands that history is laid.

Moses wrote of the temporal nature of man in Psalm 90:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night…

The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away…

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all of our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.

Our fleeting nature reminds us that the only change or victory comes from the hands of the Lord. My heart longs to pray with the patriarch as he cries out: “Return, O Lord!”, “Have pity on your servants!”, and “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.” This is the joy we can take from our frailty. This is the song we can sing knowing that our days are few. Help us to understand that we are dust and to dust shall return. While we tread the rocks and briars of this earth, satisfy us, and hear us as we rejoice in you; in that we shall forever be satisfied by you.