My 2yr-old grandson calls me “Pop-Pop,” because I wanted to be called “Pop-Pop” after my grandfather. He calls my wife, “Grammy” because that’s what some of our best friends’ daughter called her grandmother, who was another close friend who passed away in 2020 after battling cancer. These are both individuals we loved and admired. We decided on those names for ourselves before our grandson was born.
But kids sometimes have a mind of their own. Would he call us by those names? Once our grandson started talking, it was fairly easy for him to say “Pop-Pop,” but it was not easy for him to say “Grammy.” For the longest time, it came out of his mouth as “Gibble.” Now as he has learned to articulate words better and better, he calls my wife “Grammy.”
But “Pop-Pop” and “Grammy” are titles. They are not our names. In recent months, though, our grandson has also learned our names. If you ask him, “What is Pop-Pop’s or Grammy’s name?” He will say, “Joel” and “Michelle.” I think he will remember those names for the rest of his life. At least I hope so.
But I don’t know if he knows the names of his great-grandparents, many of whom are still living. In time he will learn those names too, as his great-grandparents are only in their 70s, and he will hopefully have many years with them.
How about you? How many of your great-grandparents’ names do you know?
I’m talking about the names of great-grandparents because this topic of our ancestors’ names relates to the question: Why should I fear? It’s the question the psalmist asks in Psalm 49. We studied the question itself in the previous post. Here is how he begins to answer his question in verses 7-9,
“No one can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them—the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough—so that they should live on forever and not see decay.”
When the psalmist mentions the impossibility of one human redeeming the life of another, what he means is that we cannot say, “I give my life so that another person doesn’t have to die.” Imagine a scenario where one of you loved ones is very sick, on their deathbed. My guess is that many people have prayed a prayer like, “Lord, I give my life for them. Place their sickness on me. Heal them.” But the psalmist suggests that it is not possible to give our life for another so that God says, “Okay, if you’re sure. You will now die, and your loved one is now healed and will live.”
In the same way, there is no amount of money that we could pay God so that God would say, “Thank you for this $1 billion dollars, you have now purchased an upgraded body that will not grow old. I now give you a body that will not age and you will live forever.”
There is no fountain of youth. Yes, science is working on it. Trying to crack the code of aging. Maybe they will make some advances. But for the foreseeable future, at least, what the psalmist is saying here is still obviously true. We will all die.
The psalmist makes this very clear in verses 10-11,
“For all can see that the wise die, that the foolish and the senseless also perish, leaving their wealth to others. Their tombs will remain their houses forever, their dwellings for endless generations, though they had named lands after themselves.”
Try a thought project with me. Think about the the names of your parents. Most people know the names of their parents, or at least one of their parents.
Now take it one generation back in time and think about the names of your grandparents. I suspect most people know the names of their grandparents as well.
Let’s now take our thought project one more generation backward. Do you know the names of your great-grandparents?
That’s starting to get more difficult isn’t it? I know the name of one of my great-grandparents. My mom’s grandfather, who we called “Pappy,” was a miner from Wales, England, who emigrated here in the early 1920s. His name was Bert Lewis. I do not know his wife’s name. I do not know any of my other 7 great-grandparents’ names. I once did a family tree that went back that far, but I can’t remember any of the names.
Think about that. Of my 8 great-grandparents, I know one name.
Memories are fleeting aren’t they?
Think about how many graveyards you have in your community.
Think about the graves of your loved ones. You visit them. You can decorate the graves for a while, but will your grandchildren? Will your great-grandchildren. No.
The psalmist’s point is that if we want to deal with our fears, we would do well to remember that we humans have a fleeting existence. And we cannot save ourselves. We cannot pay off God.
So where is the psalmist going with this? We’ll find out more in the next post.
Engaging Scripture 