Last week I visited Stonehenge together with, not only a couple of overseas friends, but thousands of others who had travelled there seemingly from countries the world over. And as we made our way from the carpark to the ancient monument itself, I found myself pondering why so many people had chosen to make the long journey to see what, in reality, amounts to little more than a few, admittedly large, boulders in an otherwise unremarkable field.
The reasons are, no doubt, many and varied, but as I strolled around the perimeter of the stones, I wondered if, for me at least, the appeal was similar to that of going outside late at night to gaze at the stars, or finding a rocky coastline from which to look out over a vast expanse of ocean.
Because just as it is healthy, when up close to something enormous, to recognise one’s own inherent smallness, so too is it beneficial, when alongside something that has outlasted countless generations, to realise one’s own inherent transience.
More than that, it is ultimately reassuring too.
It is estimated that Stonehenge has stood on Salisbury plain for 4,500 years – which one has to admit is an impressively long time when compared to the seventy or eighty years most of us will manage.
And so the Bible is right to liken us to ‘a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes’ [James 4:14]. Elsewhere the scriptures describes us as those whose days are but ‘a few hand-breadths’, those who ‘go about as a shadow’, a ‘mere breath’, whose length of life is as ‘nothing’ before the LORD. [Psalm 39:5-6] Unlike God who, we’re told, is ‘from everlasting to everlasting’, our days are like the grass which, when the wind passes over it, is gone and ‘its place knows it no more’ [Psalm 103:5-6]
Interestingly though, rather than sticking his head in the sand and trying to forget that he will one day die, the psalmist seems to want to fully come to terms with how fleetingly short is his life [Psalm 39:4].
So why might that be? And how might knowing the answer help us further understand why so many want to visit Stonehenge?
Well the clue is given in verse seven of that same psalm where, having recognised his own limitations, it’s writer says that his hope is in God.
We are then, not only small and therefore relatively weak, we are also short lived and therefore relatively inconsequential. And so it comes as no surprise that we are not the answer to our problems. On the contrary, all too often we are the cause of them. Little wonder then, that we sometimes find ourselves ‘in turmoil’ [Psalm 39:6]
But if as a result of recognising both our weakness and our transience, we put our hope in the eternal and all powerful God who is, therefore, of infinite significance and worthy of our praise, we will discover what it is to be secure. Because if we are not so foolish as to deny the sinfulness that is all too obviously a part of who we are [Psalm 39:8-9] and, in our weakness, humble enough to ask to be forgiven [Psalm 39:10], as well as being delivered from all our transgressions [Psalm 39:8] as a result of Christ death for us on the cross, we will also come to understand that we are only sojourners in the land [Psalm 39:12] – that this world is not our home and we are, as the old song put it, ‘just a-passing through’.
And so when our three score years and ten or, by virtue of strength, four score years are over, and our time of toil comes to an end, we will ‘fly away’ [Psalm 90:10] to continue a blissful and sinless existence in the presence of our Heavenly Father who, even as he saves us, adopts us into his family as his much loved children.
And unlike Stonehenge, which will then have become just one more relic of the past, the lives we’ll enjoy in our new resurrection bodies really will last forever. Furthermore, we will dwell in a heavenly home that is similarly eternal – as everlasting in fact, as both God himself and the steadfast love he has for all those who cry out to him for help.
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. [Romans 10:13]
Related posts:
To read ‘When our joy will be complete’, click here
To read ‘Longing for the pavilion, whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here
To read ‘Be drunk’, click here
To read ‘Rest Assured’, click here
To read ‘How to be fit when unwell’, click here
To read ‘Because sometimes, not even chocolate is enough’, click here
To read ‘An Advent Countdown – reflections for Christmas‘, click here
To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here
To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here
To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.
To read ‘Ascension Day’, click here.
To read ‘Speaking in Tongues’, click here.
Some musings 