It’s called déjà vu, a French term meaning ‘already seen.’ The experience usually involves a scenario which feels vaguely familiar, which stirs an emotion, a little pinch of longing. The strange part of it is that it’s impossible that the situation is a repeat. Yet that mysterious something lingers, causes us to rack our brains as to when we were there before.
Here’s my take on this: Adam and Eve were created in God’s image to have regular, sweet, unbroken fellowship with God in the Garden. Sin trashed all that, instantly causing them to be fearful (a first for this negative emotion!) and ashamed (another yucky first) because they were not clothed (up til then not an issue). As a further, terrible consequence, they found themselves alienated (yet another first!), abandoned (again), exiled, and introduced to an unfriendly, unwelcoming, pain-filled existence. And tearfully regretting the rebellious action and longing with everything in them for a return to the way things were.
Millennia forward and all of humanity continues to agitate in this isolation from home. We are haunted with vague impressions of something lost somewhere in the distant past. Instilled within us, we ache with a pining for what was, a feeling that this world is foreign territory, a sense that we all were made for more. This emptiness, this unfulfilled pull, expresses itself in the worship of whatever promises to complete us, however insincere or incapable of delivering what we truly desire.
There is something so beautiful in a letter King Hezekiah wrote: “People of Israel, return to the ways of the Eternal One, True God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and He will return to you. . . If you return to His ways . . . the Eternal One, your True God, is gracious and compassionate and will return to you if you return to Him.” (2 Chron. 30:6,9) Throughout the Old Testament there are passages describing God’s yearning for His people to do just that, return! That means come back to something pre-existing! The most tender of all New Testament stories (IMHO) about return is the one about the prodigal (wastefully extravagant in his loving) father and the return of his prodigal (wastefully extravagant in his youthful binging) son. Could there be a clearer portrayal of the love of God the Father and His deep longing for the return ‘home’ of His children? And then, of course, there’s Jesus’ promise to come back once he’s made all ready for us in his Father’s house. Then we at last can return home – déjà vu conundrum solved. PD
