A hundred years ago, the captain of a large passenger liner led those on board in a morning devotion. Part of the devotion included singing the familiar hymn, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” We sang that hymn earlier, which includes the words: “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, soon bears us all away; we fly forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day” (LSB 733:5).
About 16 hours after the service, over 1500 people on that ship learned, firsthand, what those words meant as the Titanic slowly sank beneath the waves of the North Atlantic. That hymn, based on Psalm 90, vividly testifies to the swift passage of time and shortness of human life.
When we look back on days gone by, we exclaim: “How short life is!” Despite all our avoidance strategies, the stark reality of Psalm 90 confronts us. Our years pass quickly, and we fly away (vs. 10), so quickly that we are soon forgotten as a dream.
Many of don’t even know the full names of our grandparents, the parents who meant so much to our parents, who, in turn, mean so much to us. And unless the Lord comes soon, even the wind and weather will erase our graveyard markers.
In Psalm 90, Moses ponders the prospect of his own death. He speaks of human life as something quickly washed away by a torrential rain. He sees life as a sleep that is over even before we become aware of the passage of time. For him, life is like the grass that springs up early in the morning, only to be cut and shorn before nightfall. All people return to the dust from which they came. Physical death does not even exempt the people of God from its swift, unrelenting current.
As the passage of life is swift, so also is death inescapable, no matter what people do to try to masquerade its inevitability. Some try to avoid thinking about death by being busy. Others may gather so many of the world’s goods that it looks as if they will never leave this world behind. Still others may think that they can shove the certainty of death aside through particular diets and fitness programs.
Yes, there will always be those who try to “immortalize” themselves. There are even those who try to philosophize death away by adopting an “eat, drink, and be merry” outlook, or by viewing death as simply a return to Mother Nature.
But the Lord Almighty exposes the whole masquerade. Go ahead! Shout, cry, squirm, and rationalize as you will. No matter what, that brick wall of death is still there, and it stops everyone cold in his tracks. The sand in the hourglass will not slow down for anyone.
As generation follows generation, what is it that makes the human condition so helpless and hopeless? In Psalm 90, Moses gives his honest appraisal of life in this world. The entire problem from beginning to end, belongs, not with God, but with us. The problem has always been our sin and guilt–sin which is nothing less than the cause of our mortality. Even our secret sins are fully laid bare in God’s presence.
We have built the brick wall of death with our own hands. But what makes us so powerless is that our hands can do nothing to tear that wall down. Even if we could double or triple our lifespan, death would still come.
Psalm 90 teaches us not to let a false optimism about human life fool us into a false sense of security. The psalm would have us look at human life in complete honesty. As we stare death in the face, and all the problems that lead up to it, Psalm 90 lets us know that we can do nothing more than fall flat on our faces.
Yet, even falling on our faces achieves nothing. The point is that we need to fall in the right direction–toward the one, true God, the God does not leave us comfortless. Even in the first verse of the psalm we learn the direction God would have us fall: “Lord, You have been our refuge in every generation” (vs. 1).
What is the answer, the solution, to our human dilemma? In the spirit of the psalmist, we confess, “O Lord, the answer to our poverty is not wealth. The answer to our sicknesses is not health. The answer to our sadness is not our happiness. The answer to everything that death can throw at us is You, and You alone.”
Psalm 90 is incredibly enlightening. In that psalm, Moses doesn’t base his evaluation of human life on an unrealistic optimism or a dour pessimism. He simply contrasts us transitory humans with our eternal God. In other words, what we happen to think or feel is not what counts. What matters is what God thinks and feels and does for us; that’s what matters!
Moses speaks for us all when he prays, “Come back, O Lord!… Have compassion on your servants” (vs. 13). It’s that compassion, that mercy, which makes all the difference in the world. Like the mountains God created, His loyal love was there for us long before we breathed our first breath. That means it will be there for us when we die. God shows His mercy toward us in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus came into this world knowing what He would find. He experienced the full range of life’s problems (but without sin). In Gethsemane, He stared death in the face. On Golgotha, He slammed into death’s brick wall and shattered it. By His death, He has destroyed death and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
In Psalm 90, we pray with Moses: “Satisfy us in the morning with your faithful love” (vs. 14). God answered that prayer even before we prayed it. He answered it on Easter morning when Jesus arose on the other side of death’s wall as our conquering Lamb.
Yes, our grandchildren may forget our names. Yes, the stones that mark our resting places may weather and crumble. But, in eternity’s shining light, those events matter not. For when we are baptized into the death of our Lord Jesus, we are also baptized into His resurrection; so says Romans, chapter 6. By His grace, we count for something. We are not forgotten; He remembers our baptismal name.
Moses beautifully describes our life with Christ: “Teach us to number our days, so we may gain a heart of wisdom” (vs. 12). There are three ways in which we count our days as children of God. First, we count our days, so we never forget our human frailty. The days, months, and years that fly by remind us of our sinful condition and that God, and only God, is the solution to our sin problem.
Second, we count our days using a new unit of measurement–the grace of God. Each day, we see with wonder the mercies of God, which are new every morning. Gone are our desperate efforts at self-preservation. Gone are our blind efforts to masquerade the stark fact of our own mortality. For what counts is what God has done through His Son, Jesus, in the Holy Spirit. Only in His salvation for us do we find perfect peace.
We can say: “Let the days and years roll by! My days will be as limitless as His mercy, for my name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. The Lord Jesus Christ is the answer to all my woes. My wish is to be with Him, for that is far better. Maranatha! Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”
And third, we count each day because each day is precious in the eyes of God. Each day is another opportunity to serve our Lord by serving others. Each day is a new day to do the works that God had prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). Psalm 90 says it well: Even now God makes the works of our hands endure (Psalm 90:17). We will be remembered for the works God performs through us. For those works follow us into eternal life.
As children of God, we can number our days in a faith-filled way. We can get up in the morning, feeling the unrelenting march of time, and thank God that He remembers us. After all, we have been baptized in His triune name. As people who have been baptized into both the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we can pray: “Lord, in Your own way and time, bring me out of this sinful, fallen world. But until you do, bring me to thank you for each joyous day under Your mercy. Help me to relish every moment of life here that you give me. Amen.”
