Everlasting

Moses, seeing the pyramids of Egypt, the huge stone monuments—and saw life as fleeting. Moses, living in the precariousness of the desert, where the grass that springs up from the night dew under the shadow of the rocks is destroyed by the morning sun—saw life as fleeting. Moses, living in the desert, wandering for forty years with a people because of their rebellion, saw them die and their bones go to rest in the desert—saw the effects of sin. Life is fleeting. And he penned these words, the words of Psalm 90. Perhaps the oldest psalm in the Bible.

But Moses, given manna and quail every morning—saw God as provider, and hope for a provision beyond.

He begins—Lord, you are everlasting God. Eternal. This is who you are.

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place

    in all generations.

2 Before the mountains were brought forth,

    or ever you had formed the earth and the world,

    from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2)

He continues—life is fleeting. Perhaps he was just mourning Miriam. Perhaps he was mourning the missed opportunity of the Israelites and saw the futility of wandering in the desert. Perhaps he was nearing his own death outside the Promised Land. Perhaps he woke up and saw the sheep grazing on the dew-sprouted grass, knowing that the harsh sun would come out and wither it. Desert. Life is short. Frail.

3 You return man to dust

    and say, “Return, O children of man!”

4 For a thousand years in your sight

    are but as yesterday when it is past,

    or as a watch in the night.

5 You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,

    like grass that is renewed in the morning:

6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;

    in the evening it fades and withers.

Why? Why we cry. We too see the futility of life. When we turn off the TV with its Coca-Cola ads of happiness and joy; close the magazines with their secrets to longer life; pass the billboards with the latest technology that promises all but will be out of date before we take it out of the store, life is short. When we hear cancer, pass by the hospital, hear the sirens—life is fleeting. When we struggle with finances, broken relationships, long hours just to meet ever piling up bills—life is not what it is meant to be.

Moses too must have asked why. Maybe he even asked God as he was in the tent of meeting face to face with the everlasting God. Maybe he questioned it as he stepped out from the veil, the smell from the cloud of incense, the peaceful lamp light from the menorah, and stepped out into the glaring sun beating down mercilessly on the Israelite camp. He penned,

7 For we are brought to an end by your anger;

    by your wrath we are dismayed.

8 You have set our iniquities before you,

    our secret sins in the light of your presence.

9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;

Not individual wrath, not a personal wrath. My fight-with-death-and-disease is not caused by my individual sin. But the wrath of God against all sin, against Sin with a capital S. The futility of life is the curse, the working out of sin, the crumbling of God’s shalom back into chaos by the unraveling tweak of Adam and Eve who wrenched a thread out of the tapestry to make their own story.

We groan too.

12 So teach us to number our days

    that we may get a heart of wisdom.

“So, Lord, teach us to number our days.” It is not a promise of overcoming here. It is not a carpe diem, seize the day, nor is it despair, nor denial—things our culture falls into in the face of death. Drink deeply of finitude. Is life short? Does life seem groaning? Does life seem fleeting? Drink deeply of your finitude. It seems contradictory. What we do not want to do—we want a fix, a three-step plan to make the most of it. Or we want a narcotic of health and happiness and drink now and make merry.

Drink deeply of your finitude.

Of my illness, my weakness. Of the frustrations of having to work to pay bills, of broken relationships, of loved ones whose life has already come and gone. Do not ignore. Take, drink, and lift as a sacrifice.

The psalmist “would not presume to prescribe times to God, and that his hopes were stretched out into eternity” but “surrendered himself entirely to God in all that regarded this life or his death” (Calvin, commentary on Psalm 90:4 CTS).

Because then you see the God who is eternal, everlasting (v. 1). The God who is greater than the vast stretch of desert, the God who is greater than the towering Mount Sinai that looms over the camp. The God that is greater than the small rocks that stub our toes as we trudge.The God who is more Real than the reality we touch.

13 Return, O Lord! How long?

    Have pity on your servants!

14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,

    that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,

    and for as many years as we have seen evil.

16 Let your work be shown to your servants,

    and your glorious power to their children.

17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,

    and establish the work of our hands upon us;

    yes, establish the work of our hands!

We are not in control of time. Ten minutes from now? Maybe I don’t have enough to do that. But I have enough now. I am not in control. Moses does not call us to be more in control, but to ask for pity, to look for his love. Satisfy us with what? Not long life, not health, not the best of days, not an amazing incredible all that I could dream of day, but with your love.

For in the love of God, we are wrapped up in him. This God who is everlasting, this God who is eternal, this God who has outlived the very stars never mind pyramids, this God wraps us up in his life. Just think! In union with the Ancient of Days, the Alpha Omega, the One who was before and after. Us, in him, caught with his pulsing life and love that overflows from Life himself. I think Moses had a hint—he cried out to him to establish the work of his hands. And if all of life was afflicted, when would be the many years of gladness he spoke of? Moses knew the Lord was working for a Promised Land, here and now, and something greater. Moses cried out to a God in hope of what he did not see, in faith certain of a God who was greater.

And now we know in Christ our lives are far greater than pyramids. C. S. Lewis says you have never talked to a mere mortal—our lives will extend far greater than any civilization. In Christ, we participate in eternity. The love of God wraps us up into his own eternal life, into his own everlastingness. Me and I will exist forever. Forever.

Peter writes of our short suffering, after which this very brief time we will be established and restored and strengthened—for forever! (1 Peter 5:10). Paul speaks of our light and momentary struggles that are so short in light of eternity! (2 Cor. 417-18) Look at the pyramid—you, far more everlasting in Christ!

So we do groan now but the groaning will not win. I picture Moses looking up from where he was writing on whatever parchment type of thing they had and saw a tamarisk tree. A desert tree that takes hundreds of years to grow. He’ll live longer. See the desert wadi canyon that has been etched by years of floods? He’ll live longer. We look—see the house, the nation of America, the rock, the tree so thick you can’t wrap your arms around it? We’ll be longer….. Because we are wrapped in the eternal, everlasting love of God in Christ, because Christ breathed his last, took place in our futility, so we could know eternity. God, everlasting God, and my life is wrapped up and included and tucked into and safe in his. I am in union with Everlasting because he has wrapped me up.

And in Christ, our daily little futilities are established, bearing fruit for eternity. Yes, Lord, establish the work of our hands. Moses and the Israelites may have wandered seemingly pointlessly for forty years in the wilderness, but each day was recorded by the Creator for generations to come for our encouragement and teaching and hope (Rom. 15:4).  In their daily lives of wandering, collecting manna, searching for water, making broom tree fires, caring for the herds, they raised up a generation that was one of the most faithful in Israel who took the Promised Land. They were part of the long story of God leading to the Messiah. They are part of the glory of God—the work of their hands was established. Moses’ forty years of wandering was not a mist, but caught up in the story. And you? The 12 hour day you put in at work? A crown for the future. The patience you show day after day under a certain somebody or a certain circumstance? A reward in heaven. The faithfulness in paying bills, in washing dishes, in dusting once again? A sign of love for the eternal King, a sign of love that will far outlast pyramids and the harsh desert winds.