On the mantle above our fireplace is an ivory- white rock weighing about four pounds. We found it up on the side of U.S. Highway 385 between Big Bend National Park and Marathon. A plaque nearby designates the mountain range there as the Ouachita Fold Belt. The rock was part of a formation named Los Caballos, Spanish for The Horses, because of the several rounded, white formations that peek out the sides of the mountains.
I am mesmerized by this rock because of its age. The Ouachita Fold Belt is a range that was uplifted some 280 million years ago. This rock uplifted when all the continents we observe today were one landmass called Pangea. In fact, the rock is literally older than grass by some 200 million years.
One Bible verse that speaks of such time scales is the only psalm attributed to Moses, Psalm 90: “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. So teach us to count our days.”
In fact, there is a tired joke you may have heard before. A man once prayed: “Lord, is it true that a thousand years is as a second to you?”
“Yes, son,” God replied. Again the man asked, “Then is it true that, for you, a million dollars is as a penny?”
“Yes, son,” God answered.
Lastly, the man asked, “Lord, would you give me a penny?”
God smiled and said, “Yes, son; just a second.”
In its entirety, Psalm 90 calls us to entrust ourselves and our allotted life spans to God. Grounded in God’s work and God’s time, our lives and labors participate in the eternal.
Thomas Cahill’s third volume in his Hinges of History series is entitled The Desire of the Everlasting Hills. The title is based on a Latin translation of Jacob’s blessing on his son Joseph, in Genesis 49:26, “The blessings of thy father are strengthened with the blessings of his fathers: until the desire of the everlasting hills should come: may they be upon the head of Joseph, and upon the crown of the Nazarite among his brethren.”
The first question posed here is the one Cahill sees implied b y h is t itle, n amely, 'Is not the desire of the everlasting hills that they be saved from their everlastingness, that something new happen, that the everlasting cycle of human cruelty, of man's inhumanity to man, be brought to an end?' The primary question Cahill asks is, “Did Jesus’ influence in fact change the world?”
Jesus has become, over the course of 2000 years, the central figure in Western civilization. That’s a long time to pass. Perhaps not as long as the age of the ivory-white rock on our mantle, but still a very long time. How long does it take to change the world for the better?
One would hope that by now justice would be universal. That by now ignorance, bigotry, greed, cruelty and the lust for power would no longer be such an influence. “Did Jesus’ influence in fact change the world?” Surely the answer depends on us.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”
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