never pass away

There’s a social media trend where people share objects or activities they remember from childhood. Often I’m amused because the posters are fondly remembering the 90s, and some of the stuff they post seems relatively new to me.

I remember things like eight-track tape players and rotary-dial telephones. I relied heavily on pay phones when I traveled, and memorized an 11-digit calling card number. Movies were viewed in theaters only, and the only thing to listen to while I ran was the ambient sounds around me. Now, I carry the capability for all those things in my pocket.

In reflecting on these changes I sound like an old fogey, but there’s a point to it. Things change. Technology advances, and where once it was impossible to get across an ocean we now have a space station. Once it took several days to send correspondence back and forth, now it takes seconds. Once there was a Roman Empire, then a British Empire, then the USSR, and now all have broken into many separate countries.

Nothing is permanent. Our language changes, our values change, our standards change. Even truth is said to be flexible. Everything is subject to revision, even history.

But not Scripture. In Mark 13, Jesus foretells the end times, and gives his disciples some signs by which they will know the end is near. And he finishes with this, from verse 32: “‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.’”

Jesus’ words, his promises and proclamations, will endure when even this world has passed. God’s character as revealed to us in his word will never change, not even into eternity. Heaven itself has a lifespan, but not the word of God.

That’s hugely comforting, when each day brings local and national changes and many of those changes are worrisome. Expect change, Jesus says, but know that I will never change. It’s that certainty that takes the fear out of our ever-changing lives.