[Image: Blue Bells, 2013, JA Van Devender]
Location: Severna Park, MD
Isaiah 40:6–8 (NKJV)
6 The voice said, “Cry out!” And he said, “What shall I cry?”
“All flesh is grass, And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass withers, the flower fades, Because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”
Blue Bells are a passing dream. One moment they are a vibrant beauty bursting out of what seemed to be plain old dirt, and the next the little blossoms are withered and gone.
I am certain that they would work well with a supporting plant in an integrated setting such that you have a new color coming on as the old one fades away. They bloom early and so they could be the first in line... that might be a good idea but it requires some yard work to make it happen, and, you know... other things take priority. But I do like those little plants and look forward to them every year.
When God said that people are like grass, or the flower of the field, that quickly fades away He could have been talking about Blue Bells. It's easy to think of our individual lives as quickly fading after the burst of Springtime we call youth, but the passage is directed at the nation, the combined people of God, the collective culture that spawns and prospers and withers and dies. Peoples come and go. Ideas spring forth and are taken as "the Gospel Truth" and then, in time, are proven inadequate or absolutely wrong. Phrenology at one time was not only taken seriously, it was highly influential in many respected circles. Today it appears ludicruous.
The general point here is that culture, all human society, from top to bottom, is layered with what people call "accepted knowledge" or what is thought of as "the way things are." These "a priori" ideas are often not even consciously pondered or questioned. They are slow to change but they do, over time, as various experiences and circumstances work their way through the cultural synthesis. We are still living with the social influences of fifty years ago but they are far diminished in their impact now than then.
Man, as individuals and as individual cultural orders, have their time of loveliness and then they wither, often turning distinctly "un-pretty", and die.
But there is something that is permanent. There is a rock that is unchanging in its stability. There is God's Word, complete in what it proclaims, infallible in what it asserts and inerrant in what it says. It is permanent because it is "God's" Word and not ours. It does not bear human limitation because it is not of human origin. It is of God even as it is about God. It stands in judgment over all human assessment, rather than the reverse. No man has the right to criticize its claims nor try to mitigate its blinding light. It is an uncomfortable Word, often for believers but for unbelievers, always. It proclaims that a Sovereign God fiercely retains His Sovereign rights and prerogatives. He requires obedience but grants mercy to those who acknowledge Him and humbly seek to serve Him. He loves and hates. He warmly receives and fiercely turns away. He speaks in quiet whispers and in terrifying thunders. He is Who He is. He is not another.
This His Word proclaims and this is the bedrock on which every human endeavor can build. "Say to the cities of Judah, 'Behold your God!'" From age to age the same.... The Alpha and the Omega, the bright and morning star.... This is the sum of all permanence and the definition of it.
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