Christian Thoughts #012: on "the Rock of Ages"

 

 

   AS A CHILD, I learned to sing "Rock of Ages, cleft for me. Let me hide myself in Thee." Now I'm not sure what all the theological connotations are concerning this title, Rock of Ages, but hearing this song out of my past brings rarer thoughts to me.

   For one, it reminds me that God is older than I am. In fact, He's a heck of a lot older than I am. And you know? He'll still be around when I'm eighty. He'll still be around when I lie silent in the grave. In fact, He will still be around (should the universe last so long) when my children and their children are in their graves, just the same as He was around before I was born, for the lives of my parents and the lives of their parents.

   If I had to characterize life, one word I'd describe it with would be the word 'transient'. An older and better writer than I has said "For what is your life? It is even a vapour, which appears for a little time and then vanishes away." Behold, the brevity of life.

   Life is quick, fleeting. It rushes reckless on headlong, like I did at a younger age when my brother and I rolled down hills for kicks, in a time which the past has changed into a memory. Life is constantly changing and a significant part of me is little more than a collection of memories, a series of images related to the past, all attached somehow to a biological machine, which must some day run down until it stops.

   What a stark contrast to the Rock of Ages. The Lord of All has been around for so many generations of human beings, for so many ages of the Earth, even before the stars began to shine, in just the same way as He is around today. Contrary to the vaporous, evanescent nature of human existence, this great and mysterious passing-thing we call Life, God Himself is not transient, is not changing, but simply goes on. He remains. He is.

   There is really nothing comparable, is there?

   I mean we all know that wealth is awesome (in measured increments), but wealth doesn't always stik around. So too, relationships can come and go with the whims of emotion or the touch of mortality. Possessions fall apart and break, become used up, and you can't take them with you. You can't take anything with you, really.

   This Rock of Ages, this so-called Foundation of all Time, is just that. And He is the only One who will be with you in this Life and stand waiting to meet you in the next, should you repenting prepare yourself for that meeting, should you "let the water and the blood, from Thy wounded side which flowed, be of sin the double-cure..."

    Time ticks on and Life dashes madly forward in its race, but only God stands immovable and unmoved. To me, this is one of the most comforting thoughts I've ever had about God. He will outlive me and He's been around a lot longer than I. My own existence does nothing to uphold Christianity or prove or disprove God. I don't make Him exist, any more than I cause myself to be. God remains.

     -norton