Life may seem to be cyclical—that was how the ancient pagans thought of it, and how modern pagans still do—but those who think christianly understand that human existence and the universe itself have an eschatological trajectory. Most of us do the same things every day. My feet follow the same path every morning. I am conscious of the process. It is unvarying, but deliberate. There is an order to each of my actions in the dark hours as I make my way downstairs, a logic to what I do in sequence. God has ordered our lives this way.
Death follows birth. We rest on the Lord’s Day and then go to our work. We feast and fast. We marry and bury. Children are born and then launched like arrows. There is a liturgy to life, as in corporate worship. Called, cleansed, consecrated, communed, and commissioned, again and again, until we take our last breath in this world and step into the presence of the Lord of all worlds.
Chesterton writes of the repetition in creation as being deliberate acts of God, signs of his youth, arguing that it is sin that has made us grow old and resent monotony.
“Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE. Heaven may ENCORE the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance.” –G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Life is not a cycle; it is a journey, but that journey involves many repetitions. Each night the camp must be made, a fight lit, food cooked and eaten, the beds laid and bodies upon them. Each morning we must rise to the same routine in reverse and set out again on our walk. You can resist and resent the sameness, or you can thank God for daily manna and that it tastes like wafers with honey rather than pickles. It is our sin that makes our souls grow old, and if that is so, then it is true that sanctification involves daily renewal (2Cor. 4:14-16), being made younger each day, even as our bodies grow older and wear out.
Tomorrow we will, our Lord willing, do the same things we do every Lord’s Day. God will summon us into his presence, and we will rejoice to be there. We will confess our sins, and he will assure us of his forgiveness, love, and favor. We will listen to his Word with reverence and gratitude, and he will form us more into the likeness of the Son as the Spirit applies that word to our hearts. Then we will feast at his table, receive his blessing, and go on our way rejoicing that the Triune God has blessed us with every good thing we enjoy.
You and I must choose whether to worship like children or like grumpy old people. The children rejoice to say, “Amen!” even if they do it a few seconds late. They are delighted to lift their hands and sing as the psalms instruct us all to do—no doubt the three-year-olds do so because of their stern commitment to the Regulative Principle. They listen to the “long preach” because they know the donuts are coming, and they will be able to get a gummy worm or three from Miss Nancy before, and maybe after, their presbyterian pastry. We are God’s children, so let us resolve to worship with the enthusiasm of youth. God is coming to meet us and bless us. Let us welcome him and pray that he will “Do it again.” --JME
