Concluding the series, "Navigating Life’s Disappointments"
Based on Ecclesiastes 12:1-14
The Season of Easter – May 10-11, 2008
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Palatine, Illinois
Pastor John E. Glover, Jr.
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Recently I saw an entertainment story on the Internet that included a slide show of famous people. It had a whole bunch of celebrities who were famous in the sixties, seventies, or eighties. Their fame was fleeting. They dropped off the map, and had not appeared in movies or TV for a long time. For good measure, they included some people who maintained steady work through the decades. There were two pictures shown: one from when they were famous, and then one snapped recently at some event. So there was, for example, a picture of Lindsay Wagner, better known as the "Bionic Woman" in the 1970’s, as I remembered her back then, in her mid-twenties. Then I would click on the photo and see a picture as she is now, at age 58. Or Farrah Fawcett Majors in her late twenties, now age 61. Now, don’t ask me why I single out these two celebrities. I was about a twelve-year old boy when they were popular. I also remember Jim Rockford, who was my dad’s age in the 1970’s. Unlike my dad, he drove a sweet rust-colored sports car and had so much hair that he had a pompadour. He looked younger than my bald dad. Well James Garner has caught up to my dad, and I think maybe my dad look’s more handsome. Each time I looked at one of these before and after photos, I said, "Whoa!" These celebs are probably good-looking for their age group. It just brought home to me in an instant, and the way they morphed between the two pictures, how the ravages of age effect even the people whom we consider to be so beautiful, in our celebrity culture. I have this kind of "Whoa!" reaction at a funeral when the family lines up all the photos of the deceased. I only knew the deceased as a senior citizen, but here is this whole other young life I never knew or could picture until now. By the way, I am not immune from having a "whoa" directed at me. Recently I had some company over, and they spotted a picture of me holding my pug dog, Matilda Mugs. The picture was probably ten years old. They said, "Boy, you looked so young!" I have heard more than one senior citizen say that the Golden Years are not so golden. And it seemed that life went buy so quickly. My dad said recently, "It was just yesterday I was in my twenties." Now he will be turning eighty. Much of our culture insists that we need to pursue life, health, and vitality and avoid, at all costs decay, disease, and death. Who graces the cover of our magazines? The young and the vigorous, tanned, and healthy do. They day they stop looking like this, they are discarded for the next young people. If the Teacher in Ecclesiastes were alive today, he would look at a magazine covers, which so idealize youth and vitality, and see beyond the health and young faces, and he would remind us of the slow-but-steady process of aging. His most visit portrait of that is in chapter 12:1-7. Most commentators take this as a metaphorical description of the aging process. It’s like the darkening gloom of a coming storm. Old age is a time of damp darkness. It’s like a house in which people tremble and stoop. It’s like a dilapidated house that decays. Here is a dynamic translation. Remember him before your legs—the guards of your house—start to tremble; and before your shoulders—the strong men—stoop. Remember him before your teeth—your few remaining servants—stop grinding; and before your eyes—the women looking through the windows—see dimly (NLT). Eyesight grows dim, our chewing and enjoyment of food diminishes. We have difficulty hearing (the songs grow faint). And desire is no longer stirred. I will let you translate the last one. A while back the San Francisco Chronicle had an article entitled, "A Timetable of the Ravages of Age: How a Man Ages." A guy at age thirty is in pretty good shape, but after thirty, he loses about one percent of his body’s functional capacity every year. From then on, cells are disappearing, tissues are stiffening, and chemical reactions are slowing down. By age seventy his body temperature will be two degrees lower. He will stand an inch shorter and have longer ears. There you have it, scientific corroboration of what the Bible already tells us. The Teacher completes his picture by describing death as a silver chord that snaps or a golden bowl that breaks. Life is precious, like precious metal. At death, the preciousness is useless. Death casts a huge shadow over life. The teacher even questions whether God treats us differently from an animal. What to do? The Teacher counsels in many places, "Try to enjoy the ride." His answer can be summed up in the lyrics and vocal styling of Mr. William Shatner, of Star Trek fame. He wrote a song called, "You’ll Have Time." (If you know Shatner, he does not so much sing than speak his lines and he overacts them). He said, "Live life. Live life like you're gonna die, because you're gonna. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you're gonna die." It’s the philosophy Carpe Diem! Seize the day! The Teacher says this is the best you can do "under the sun." The Festival of Booth of Tabernacles, called Sukkoth in Hebrew, is in part, an old harvest festival, deriving from a time when the Israelites were farmers and would give thanks every autumn when the harvest had been gathered. It’s mentioned in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 16. The Israelites are commanded to rejoice. Today the Jews still build a small annex to their homes, just a few boards and branches, invite friends in, drink wine, and eat fruit in it for the week of the holiday. According to one Rabbi though, "Sukkot is a celebration of the beauty of things that don’t last, the little hut which is so vulnerable to wind and rain (ours regularly collapses a day or two after we put it up) and will be dismantled at weeks end; the ripe fruit which will spoil if not picked and eaten right away; the friends who may not be with us for as long as we would wish; and in northern climates, the beauty of leaves changing color as they begin the process of dying and falling from the trees… It comes to tell us that the world is full of good and beautiful things, food and wine, flowers and sunsets and autumn landscapes and good company to share them with, but we have to enjoy them right away because they will not last. They will not wait for us to finish other things and get around to them… It’s a time to enjoy happiness with those we love and to realize that we are at a time in our lives when enjoying today means more than worrying about tomorrow… The special scriptural reading assigned for study in the synagogue during the Feast of Tabernacles is the Book of Ecclesiastes." (Harold Kushner, When All You’ve Every Wanted Isn’t Enough, pgs. 189-90). How melancholy in way! How poignant it is, of life under the sun! The second wise man who brings the book to a close is the authoritative voice of Ecclesiastes. He affirms the Teacher’s outlook of life "under the sun," and apart from God, but he also takes us further. He instructs us to "fear God," and to look "above the sun." For Christians an above-the-sun perspective includes Jesus. The New Testament recognized the death and decay of creation now. In Romans 8:18-25, Paul looks forward though to a different future. Instead of the pessimism, cynicism, despair, Paul looks forward to a future with eagerness, confidence, and patience. Into death and decay, Jesus came. God does not stand aloof from His creation but gets involved with the dirt, grime, and disappointment of what it means to be human. God truly bears our grief, and carries our sorrows and disappointment. Jesus subjected Himself to the under-the-sun realm. He went to death alone for our sake. He experienced its curse and horror for our sake. We follow Jesus. We die. But death is not the last word in our vocabulary. Remember the trumpet from my Easter sermon. We fear death and experience its pain, but it’s not the end of the story. Remember the trumpet? The trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised! Even those of us who embrace Christ can appreciate the fact that we should live life to the fullest. Death is not the end. This confession intensifies our appreciation of the joy we can experience in life. When we come to grips with the fact that we will grow old and die, we also pay attention to the times of goodness and joy, like the Jews do at the Festival of Booths. The New Testament says that life is only meaningful in the light of Jesus. Death is not the end, but the final birth. Death is not the final chapter but the first chapter of a never-ending sequel. Death is defeated. Living with end in mind transforms our lives now. Go in peace; serve the Lord, live your life to the fullest in the Lord, Amen! |