Isaiah 26
Isaiah 28:16:
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “ Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily. |
The existentialist must make haste, he has only time, and not even time with meaning. He must make haste to establish a meaning and then to develop it, yet always knowing meaninglessness is ultimate. This reduced man and his attempts to establish meaning to more than a "futile passion," to use Sartres phrase. On the other hand, "he that believeth shall not make haste," because the totality of meaning surrounds him; his labor is never in vain in the Lord (I Cor 15L58), and the future does not depend on his labor, while requiring it as a service, but on the Lord.
In every age, the existentialist has concluded, "let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." Such an attitude is a despair of time, a flight from responsibility and reality, and a destruction of hope. It stands in strong contrast to the sabbath rest with others, the sense of community in rejoicing before the Lord. In Deut 14:27-28 and elsewhere, the call is to eat, drink and be merry, for the Lord is God, and His sabbath rest is the gift of assured victory to man. |