Are we older than God?

Are we older than God?....the first time I was asked this question I thought it was a pretty ridiculous  - a sensation you are probably sharing in right now. Obviously the literal answer is absolutely not, in so far as God is in time. But, on a deeper level there are some cool truths to ponder in this question.

Sigur Ros released a music video to accompany his song "Hoppipollaa" a few years back. Maybe some of you don't like songs that contain lyrics in a made up language as much as I do, but I think this music video touches on something theologically profound - unintelligable lyrics aside. haha.

In the video you see elderly people engaging in activities you would only expect children to enjoy. They splash in puddles, fight imaginary pirate battles with wooden swords, sneak in a kiss when no one is looking, and do general kid like things. The irony is that they are much older than the adults they seem to be bothering (i.e. the man that comes to the door in response to a doorbell ditch...) and even play fight on top of a grave yard - in a sense making light of the death that we all ultimately face. They have a childlikeness about them; not in body, but in spirit. Although they have lived long enough to become tainted by the sin, pain, and death that prevades this world, they still maintain a demeanor of mirth in regards to life.

It reminds me of something I read in the book "Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton. He said, "Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian...Jesus' pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet he concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomats are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of teh Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth."

In another place Chesterton writes, "He (God) has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grow old, and our Father is younger than we." Sigur Ros touched on this, intentional or not, in his representation of elderly people who share in God's "eternal appetite" for infancy.