It’s bigger. A lot bigger. A full 5 1/2 inches of polished glass on top of silicon. And it’s so, so much cooler. Because it’s new.
The annual pilgrimage has happened again. People camped out in front of Apple stores—in some cases for days, living in tents and eating at McDonalds, all so that they could be the first with an iPhone 6. There’s no end of goofy stories—people making international flights; iPhones selling in China for 10 times the original price ($6,000 and up); Or my favorite—the first guy in the world to walk out with a new iPhone (in Australia) promptly dropped it on the ground—on live TV.
Before I make anyone angry, I actually really like Apple products. I’m using one right now. I confess that one time I even traveled to three different Apple stores, looking for the iPad I wanted to buy.
But we all (even the media sources) know that this is a cultural obsession. Obviously, three days in a tent on concrete is dumb. That’s why people write newspaper articles about it. The problem isn’t even new. The Greek philosopher Plato once offered a famous fable about men sitting in a cave watching shadows on a wall (think bad TV). They never think to turn around and look for the source. The moving shadows are interesting enough so they’ll just “stick to that, thank you very much.” In 2014, the shadows come in color and high-resolution on a 5.5’’ retina display, but it’s still easier to stare at the shadows and miss reality.
For one thing, it isn’t just smartphones. I’ve met people passionate about everything from civil war reenactments to “collecting” (recording) the miles they’ve ridden behind a steam locomotive. There’s something deep in human nature that gravitates toward passionate commitments like this. It’s not just that we love iPhones, biking or golf. We love the passion itself—devoting ourselves to something until we know it, shape part of our identity around it, and absorb ourselves in doing it well.
Nor would I say that’s always bad in itself. I could list 5 or 10 things I love and are part of who I am. Yes, life is about God, not hobbies or things; but we don’t live in monasteries either. God created good things for us to enjoy and we needn’t be embarrassed about it.
Yet it doesn’t take much introspection to notice that these passions don’t fill us up. People get completely obsessed with a hobby or a new iPhone because they’re looking for that joy again. It’s like passionately, compulsively squeezing a lemon that already gave up all its juice. There’s joy in those things; just not fulfillment. New iPhones fall on the pavement or get old; civil war reenactments devolve into debates on whether you’re allowed to bring drinks in a modern ice chest; golf gets too expensive.
And the joy that doesn’t satisfy; the real pleasure that’s mixed with vanity, is exactly what stands behind the contrasting poles of Ecclesiastes. On the one hand:
“Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart… Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love” (9:7-9).
and on the other hand:
“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind” (1:2, 14).
This isn’t a self-contradiction that slipped past the editor. Solomon was making a point. Joy is real and it comes from God. But at the end of the day, joy is like warm breath on a cold day—try to catch it in your hands to save for later and it’s already too late.
And so you discover that the pleasures are just pointers to something else. Life is beautiful, but the joys, palpable as they are, are only shadows of the true. Plato was onto something, he just didn’t go far enough. All of life—all of reality, in fact—is just a shadowy projection of the one grand reality that is God. If you find joy in the world He made, how much more the God Who made it?
Whatever you righteously enjoy in your earthly life, that joy came from God. He graciously gave it to you so that you would ask yourself about the source. And then He made the joy vanish in your hands so that you wouldn’t satisfy yourself in that alone. He’s graciously drawing you to much sweeter joy, found only in Himself. And here on earth He left clues everywhere you turn to draw you back to Himself. Feel free to enjoy the shadows too. But you’ll completely miss the point if you never turn around and look at the blazing light just over your shoulder.
If you’re reading this on an iPhone 6 Plus, I genuinely hope you enjoy it. And every time you enjoy that or any other earthly joy known to man, you will eventually thirst again. Until you see your Savior.
Oh! Christ He is the Fountain,
The deep sweet well of love!
The streams on earth I’ve tasted,
More deep I’ll drink above:
There, to an ocean fullness,
His mercy doth expand,
And glory-glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.
