During yesterday’s dry, lazy, hot Saturday afternoon, I drove east on Route 80 in east Texas through the gently rolling piney woods on the outskirts of Marshall, Texas.
The highway changes names several times. On the east side of Marshall it is Houston street. It is a quaint section lined with magnificent trees and forgotten history. If you aren’t careful you will drive past 1203 E. Houston St without noticing the now burned out, over grown, abandoned shell of the old Sam Houston School.
I drove by. Backed up. Stopped. And got out to read the historical marker. I was intrigued.
First opened in 1905, it was designed by a famous architect of that day and was intended to educate children from that side of Marshall that was seeing explosive growth at the turn of the century.
1905. As I wandered around the building, peeking into class rooms sitting silent for more than 100 years I couldn’t help but think of the topics of discussion on that first day while girls giggled and boys pretended not to notice.
“ I heard over the summer that two brothers from Kitty Hawk made a bicycle fly like a bird and some German scientist came up with a theory that the faster you travel, the slower time moves…but my science teacher said that’s impossible.”
Walking through the halls I couldn’t help but think all of the impossibilities in their world that are now common place in ours. But while we live in a world of unprecedented technology advancement…somethings never change. We each carry a small device in our pocket that can access the span of all human knowledge…but girls still giggle, and boys still pretend not to care. As the great preacher told us in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
Everyone there that first opening day of the Sam Houston School…the teachers, the parents, the students…are now all down the street in Colonial Gardens Cemetery. Books are written pointing out a certain truth and the knowledge is enthusiastically received for a short while but soon it is lost too. There is much in the past that can help us today but it is buried there and ignored by the next generation. We in our turn will be forgotten by those that follow.
So where is there hope? Christ is our wisdom and sanctification and redemption. In Him we have a wisdom greater than all the wisdom of this world. As it says in 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, the wisdom of the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hell bent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. God will turn conventional wisdom on its head. He will expose so-called experts as crackpots. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
A few years ago three teenagers broke in to the old school, started a fire, and burned the treasure to the ground. And things of this earth shall pass away…but His word will remain with us forever. Yes, and amen. Matthew 24:35
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