Nothing Lasts

Yesterday I saw “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button“, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. I went, thinking it would be an interesting film to see how someone is born looking very old, and ages backwards as he grows older.

Unexpectedly, I sat riveted to the screen for the entire film, not wanting to miss anything.

The film is worth a watch, but sadly there are few moments in the film that align themselves to a Christian world view. One of the strongest sub-characters in the film is Queenie, a black woman who works in a old-style nursing home in 1918 New Orleans. Unlike Benjamin Button’s father, who is so horrified at the appearance of his elderly-looking newborn son that he nearly throws him in the ocean, Queenie takes the child in and cares for him. Despite a doctor’s opinion that this baby will likely not live long, she is willing to take on the task of caring for “one of the least of these”. As he grows older (and younger), she helps him to see that appearance and abilities are not important; what you are inside is what matters.

Benjamin grows up in this nursing home, seeing people come in, grow more disabled as they live out their final years, and then seeing them die and leave, to be replaced by another person. Exposed to death from a young age, he develops a mantra that he lives by, namely “nothing lasts”. He applies this to his relationships, including that with his childhood friend, Daisy. None of the people he knows last long in his life, either because he outlives them, or because he separates himself from them.

The story was absorbing because it dealt with the life themes that affect me emotionally: Death, birth, and marriage (or lack thereof) and love. Also, the film was made cinematically attractive, with memorable historical scenes from the twentieth century. But what was saddening was the nihilism; despite love, there is no hope, and love ultimately will not fulfill because it won’t be there. True, Benjamin took care of his lover and his child in a financial sense, but he made himself physicaly absent through his decision that he would himself be a burden to these that he loved. “Nothing lasts” was indeed the theme of the film.

Contrast this with the certain knowledge of the existence of God. It allows a person to deal with the losses of life by knowing that if nothing else is reliable, Jesus is faithful and true, and He provides hope during this life and hope beyond the grave.

Keith Green‘s third album, So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt from 1980 had a song that goes beyond Benjamin Button’s phrase. Grace By Which I Stand happens to include the phrase “nothing lasts”, but qualifies it by adding “except the grace of God, by which I stand, in Jesus”.

Lord,
The feelings are not the same,
I guess I’m older,
I guess I’ve changed.

And how I wish it had been explained,
That as you’re growing
You must remember,

That nothing lasts,
Except the grace of God,
By which I stand,
In Jesus.

I know that I would
Surely fall away,
Except for grace,
By which I’m saved.

Lord,
I remember that special way,
I vowed to serve you,
When it was brand new.
But like Peter,
I can’t even watch and pray,
One hour with you,
And I bet,
I could deny you too.

But nothing lasts,
Except the grace of God,
By which I stand,
In Jesus.

I’m sure that my whole life would waste away,
Except for grace,
By which I’m saved.

But nothing lasts,
Except the grace of God,
By which I stand,
In Jesus.

I know that I would
Surely fall away,
Except for grace,
By which I’m saved.