Nothing New

‘Nothing tastes,’ said Marie Antoinette. Life is a bad joke. ‘All is vanity,’ said Solomon. There is a shallow satisfaction that sours with repetition, and turns ugly with age. The sun grows duller with every rising; and every viewing dilutes its splendor. Change is the only standard by which to measure joy and excitement, and in the end everything will be discovered, tasted, and found to bore. To know that nothing will ultimately satisfy, and everything will eventually be spent; that time will blunt the excitement and sharpen the longing throughout all eternity, is the terrible lot—the very real lot—of every man who expects full satisfaction from the finite, and might be a very good approximation of hell. But still the sun rises and sets, the seasons shift and the swallows return, much as they have done every year. With the exuberance of a toddler holding up the same picture book, the Creator of life seems to say ‘again!’

Again.

At which Marie Antoinette groans and Solomon returns to his pen. The same sunrise, the same swallows circling overhead, the same old leaves falling from the trees: a song on loop, a story reread. Nothing changing. With enough time, nothing is new under the sun. And yet the Good Author looked at all of it and said, ‘It is very good.’ He sustains every day with a consistency as unrelenting as the mountain’s roots, and commands all of it with deep joy: ‘Again!’ Again water runs downhill, again swallows hatch from eggs, again the trees bloom. And if our good God can look on it with joy for all eternity, then so should we.

Joy in the Creator

Again and again, bewails Ecclesiastes’ Teacher. In the end there is nothing new. In the end everything is vanity.

And it is true. As an end, everything under the sun is vanity. But there is one end that brings satisfaction to everything: loving God. Ecclesiastes concludes with an exhortation to remember God, to fear him, and to obey. And this is true worship which brings satisfaction to all his works. A sunrise proclaims his splendor and his splendor never gets old. When we perceive creation as a choir calling out to a worthy God, every moment, no matter how repeated, becomes glorious when our satisfaction is in him and seeing him glorified. Eternity will not be enough to enjoy the wonderfulness of God and seeing it expressed. Sunrises will proclaim his glory on earth—old or new—forever, with a repetition almost as unrelenting as the elders bowing before the Lamb. ‘Worthy, worthy, worthy.’

So, when the days keep coming, when birdsong gets old, when you have seen every colour, and every experience has gotten old, remember God and his love for his creation. He loves autumn so much he makes the leaves blush every year. He loves the downhill trickling of water so much, it always rushes back into the sea. He loves the birth of a child so much, every generation starts that way. God’s joy is so consistent we can base scientific laws on it. Like the books worth re-reading, the joy of God never falters at sustaining what he has crafted. God takes full joy and no regret from the story he has written for today, not because is is different from yesterday, but because it expresses his glory exactly as he planned it to. When we take joy in his satisfaction, nothing gets old. Every repeated beauty is worth repeating because it never stops giving our Maker joy.

Celebrate his rule every morning, take pleasure in the coolness of every dusk, drink of every winter, savour every summer; teach your soul thankfulness and joy at every moment, because what you behold is all creation worshiping God, and God taking joy in his creation. Long to better understand the Maker, fear him for who he is, and obey his commands, then every satisfaction, every wonderful moment will become all the brighter, because in the light of Christ’s joy and glory every expression of that is worth celebrating every time he smiles and shakes the world with the command, ‘Again!’

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Recommended Reading

Finding books worth reading is a difficult task. I have always appreciate recommendations on this front, so here are a few relating to this article’s theme:

• Orthadoxy, G. K. Chesterton

• Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis

• Knowing God, J. I. Packer