Sunday 11 • 17 • 19

A note to the listener: this sermon is being rerecorded due to issues with our technology from the first round. So this is not a live performance.

Today, we're reading from Ecclesiastes, chapter 11 verses 7 through 10 and chapter 12 verses 1 through 7. Listen to God's word.

Light is sweet and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. So, if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. But let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity. Rejoice, oh young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. Remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. Remember also your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw nigh of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them. Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain. In the day when the keepers of the house tremble and the strong men are bent and the grinders cease because they are few and those who look through the windows are dimmed and the doors on the street are shut. When the sound of the grinding is low and one rises at the sound of a bird and all the daughters of song are brought low. They are afraid also of what is high and terrors are in the way. The almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets. Before the silver cord is snapped or the golden bowl is broken or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern and the dust returns to the earth as it was and the spirit returns to god who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the preacher. All is vanity. — Ecclesiastes 11:7-12:8

I don't know if you're familiar with the writer and humorist David Sedaris, who's actually from Raleigh. But in his book When You Are Engulfed in Flames, he gives this account of purchasing a human skeleton and hanging it in his house. This is what he writes:

As the days pass, I keep hoping that the skeleton will become invisible, but he hasn't. Dangling between the dresser and the bedroom door, he is the last thing I see before falling asleep and the first thing I see in the morning. It's funny how certain objects convey a message. My washer and dryer, for example. They can't speak, of course, but whenever I pass them, they remind me I'm doing fairly well. No more laundry for you, they seem to say. My stove, who's a real downer, tells me every day I can't cook. But before I can defend myself, my bathroom scale jumps in shouting from the bathroom, "Well, he must be doing something. My numbers are off the charts." But the skeleton has a much more limited vocabulary and says only one thing: you are going to die. For the first few weeks, I hear the voice only when I'm in the bedroom. Then it spread and took over the entire apartment. I'd be sitting in my office gossiping on the telephone, and the skeleton would cut in sounding like an international operator. You are going to die. I stretch out in the bathtub soaking in fragrant oils while outside my window, beggars are gathered like kittens upon the heating grates. You are going to die. In the kitchen, I throw away a perfectly good egg. You are going to die. In the closet, I put on a sweater that some half blind child was paid 10 sesame seeds to make. You are going to die. You are going to die. You are going to die. Finally, I asked the skeleton, "Do you think you could alter it just a little?" But he wouldn't. And that's when I broke down. "I'll do anything you like," I say. "I'll make amends to people I've hurt. I'll bathe in rainwater, you name it. Just please say something, anything else." The skeleton hesitated a moment. "You are going to be dead someday," he told me.

Now, today we're closing in on the end of Ecclesiastes and the teacher turns his attention, and therefore our attention, to death. No one wants to think about death. No one wants to be reminded of our mortality. Sedaris's skeleton is funny precisely because we all feel this—I don't want to think about this. I don't want to hear about this. But in this journey for meaning, the teacher has to end up here. And he does so because facing death teaches us how to live.

So this morning, three R's from this passage on death: embracing reality, rejoicing in the days given you, and remembering your maker.

Embracing Reality

Now, you may not have been able to understand this as I read it, but this section from chapter 12 verses 1 through 7 is a beautiful, powerful poem that's a metaphor for aging and its impact on every body part. And it's symbolic. So let me give you a modern paraphrase. But over the whole thing is this phrase from verse 1.

Remember your Creator when you were young. Verse two speaks of light and sun and moon and stars. It's talking about your eyes. So verse two, remember your creator before your cataracts make images hard to see. Or verse three, talking here about the keepers of the house trembling, strong men being built, bent. Those are talking about your bones. So he's saying, remember your Creator before your arms and legs start shaking as if every moment was like living through an earthquake, before you permanently bend slightly forward at the waist. He talks about grinders, those are your teeth. Remember your Creator before all your teeth fall out and force you to gum soft foods. He talks about the windows. Remember your Creator before your eyesight goes bad and you have to wear reading glasses and your brow is furrowed from squinting.

Verse four, remember your creator before your lips stay pursed all day as if you'd eaten something sour. Before your appetite is so small and teeth so few that you can rarely eat. Before you begin waking up with the birds at the crack of dawn for no reason, and you have nothing to do all day. Before your hearing is so diminished that you can no longer enjoy surround sound or good seats at a concert. Verse five, remember your creator before you can no longer climb a ladder or a tree for fear of falling and shattering a lengthy list of brittle bones. Remember your creator before you're afraid to leave the house, too afraid of people and too scared of traffic to drive. Remember your creator before all your hair turns gray or you go bald like me. Remember your creator before your legs are so weak that you have to drag them along with a cane or walker. He mentions this like a grasshopper here. He says, before your desire leaves, that means your sex drive. Before your sex drive runs out of gas. Before you die and all your friends shed tears at your funeral.

Verse six, he talks about the golden bowl and the silver cord. And what he's talking about here is remembering your creator before you break your back and die, or before you take a fatal blow to the head and die, or before you have a heart attack and die, before your arteries clog up and you die. In verse seven, remember your Creator before your bones turn into food for worms in the ground, and your soul stands before God in final judgment.

Why Poetry About Death?

Now, this is a poem. Why is this written in such flowery language? I think it's because the people of Koheleth's day, the teacher's day, just like people in our day, didn't want to think about death. So the teacher is doing two things here. He's taking us on a grand tour of every part of your body and how aging is going to affect your body. And finally, he's also being gentle. He's using euphemisms, symbolic language because he knows that this is painful for us. I'm sure that death has always been a hard subject. But it seems like our society is especially adept at denying aging and death on the one hand, and glorifying youth on the other.

If you notice, it's really hard for celebrities to age and remain popular, particularly women. We glorify youth. This is why you can go on the internet and see all the pictures of where are they now and we're shocked to see what they look like. And yet they would be shocked to see what we look like. It's also why we spend so much money on treatments to make ourselves look young. Just this year, there's been a huge stir about the new miracle drug, RTB 101, which some are calling the elixir of life for its supposed abilities to stop cellular aging. That sounds like science fiction, but this is now our real world.

We also have a great ability to hide death and the elderly from us. You know, if you go over to England or you even go into the countryside to find these old country churches, you'll see the way that they're built with a cemetery that you have to walk through on the way to the door. What was the message? It's just like David Sedaris's skeleton. It says, you are going to die. I can't imagine a church today purposely creating space in their lawn for a cemetery. Can you? And we put our elderly in group homes. Almost nobody dies at home anymore. And the funeral business is designed to make death neat and tidy and brief.

But listen to the teacher. The message of this passage is embrace reality. You are going to die. You are getting older. Your body is decaying right now. Nothing, not even RTB 101 can stop that. You are going to grow hair in weird places. You're going to lose muscle tone. You're going to lose eyesight and memory. You're going to lose your beauty. There is still no cure for the common birthday. That shouldn't surprise us at all if we're living in reality. But who wants to live in reality?

I read a quote this last week by Terry Pratchett. He says, inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened to them. Right? Why is it we're so afraid of death and aging?

Aging and death signify some of the things we fear the most, things like loss of independence, not being able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. Reduced energy to enjoy life. Loss of physical vitality or beauty, feeling ugly and unattractive. Or regret over missed opportunities, missed relationships, or stupid decisions. Nobody wants this. But the teacher reminds us that being a wise person is living in reality, embracing your aging and death as a part of life. In many ways, death is the best teacher. Death teaches you how to live.

In the middle of his cancer, Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers, said this about how death was teaching him. He wrote, remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've encountered to help me make big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Illusions built by fame or money, like I made in my life, I cannot take them with me.

How Death Teaches Us

How does death teach us? Listen to the teacher. Two things: remembering and rejoicing. First, remembering your creator. See Ecclesiastes 12:1? This is the great command of the passage. Remember God, especially when you're young. Why does he emphasize that young people need to think about death? Youth has a way of making you feel like you will live forever.

William Hazlett wrote an essay trying to describe what it feels like to be young versus being old. He said, to be young is to be as one of the immortals. I think that's so true. He wrote that in 1827. I mean, it sounds like it's today. Old age, getting older, it seems like something that happens to other people like your parents or grandparents. But we all need to hear this: You are not immortal. You are going to die. This is going to happen to you.

The teacher tells us two ways we need to remember God. First, as creator. As he says in Ecclesiastes 12:1, God made you. As such, he has a claim on you. You cannot just act like you made yourself and therefore exist for yourself. But then in Ecclesiastes 11:9, he reminds us that God is not just our maker, but also our judge. He says, God will bring you to punishment. God is judge.

Can I remind you of this? The Bible says that every person will stand when Jesus returns before the judgment seat of God. Every person will be judged. No one, not one person is righteous according to the standard of God. All people, no matter if you're a really nice person or a serial killer, all people rebel against God. All of us want to be king of our lives. All people not only face death but will face God as judge. And what would you say when you stand before the righteous judge of all the earth? Will you say, "Hey, my intentions were better than my follow through" or "I'm only human" or "At least I wasn't as bad as some family member"? But see, every person will stand to give an account, and by your own words and actions, the Bible tells us you will be condemned.

Now, I know this feels like really bad news, but within it is actually very good news for us. Listen to Bono of the band U2. He writes:

Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books. It's a book about a character who wants to find out why he's alive, why he was created. He tries knowledge, he tries wealth, he tries experience, he tries everything. And you hurry to the end of the book to find out why and it says, "Remember your creator." In such a way, it's such a letdown, yet it isn't.

You know, I like that. He says, in a way, it's such a letdown, yet it isn't. Why does he say that? It's because the bad news has within it the good news. It calls us to face reality and remember our creator and our judge.

Now, if you're a student of the Bible, you'll know that the doctrine of the afterlife was kind of fuzzy in the Old Testament. The Old Testament people of Israel had a doctrine of Sheol, a place of the dead, and an idea, a doctrine that judgment will come upon people after death. But even as we've read through this book, we've noticed the teacher himself, in chapter three, asks the questions: What will happen? It looks like beasts and people both suffer the same outcome after death. They both return to dust. And the teacher says:

Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes downward into the earth?

They have a fuzzy doctrine of the afterlife. But again, we're looking and hearing the teacher and then listening to the rabbi. What was fuzzy with the teacher, Kohelet, in Ecclesiastes, is made clear by Rabbi Jesus. Jesus came speaking with authority about death and life after death. Jesus promised his followers:

In my Father's house are many rooms, and I go there to prepare a place for you.

He offered the thief on the cross dying next to him. He said:

Today, you will be with me in paradise.

Such comforting words are not just about some generic place called Sheol, but a real heaven with God where those who die in the Lord go immediately upon death. And Jesus spoke about hell more than anybody else in the Bible. He told parables about it. He warned the religious leaders of it. He spoke of it not as metaphor, but as reality that was sure. It's really popular in our day to want to be more gracious than Jesus in regard to hell, to be a universalist. But Jesus was no universalist. He warned that there was a final judgment for the dead and eternal life with God for those who believe in him and eternal punishment apart from God for those who did not.

But listen, Jesus also promised this. Famously, in John chapter 11, Jesus appears at the death of his friend Lazarus. And as he's coming to the house, he meets Martha, Lazarus' sister, who comes to confront him on his delay. And Jesus says to her:

I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? — John 11

Now this is one of the great "I am" statements of Jesus as we have been looking at this fall. Jesus is claiming the divine name. In the Old Testament, God had revealed himself at the burning bush with Moses and told Moses his name. God says his name was "I am that I am," or in Hebrew, Yahweh. And here Jesus takes the same formula over and over again in the Gospel of John. He has said:

Before Abraham was, I am. — John 8:58

I am the bread of life. — John 6:35

I am the good shepherd. — John 10:11

I am the vine. — John 15:5

I am the living water. — John 4:10

I am the way, the truth, and the life. — John 14:6

And here:

I am the resurrection and the life. — John 11

See, only Christianity of all the world's religions claims as its founder a man who claimed to be God. Only Christianity of all the world's religions claims as its founder a man who did not just tell us about how to live, but came to die so that we might live forever. And only Christianity of all the world's religions has as its founder a man who died and was raised from the dead so that we who are about to die can know eternal life can be ours in him.

I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. — John 11

This means that when a Christian comes to final judgment, we have a better answer to the judge of all the universe for when we have to give an account for our lives. We have a better answer than "my intentions were better than my follow through," or "I'm only human," or "at least I wasn't as bad as blank." What is our answer? What is our answer? Jesus. He is the one who owns the deed to my life and my resurrection and he gives me eternal life with him.

Elsewhere in the Bible, we learn that for those who are in Christ, for the Christian, final judgment has been turned into an award ceremony. We don't have to fear it. We hear instead at the final benediction over our lives:

Well done, good and faithful servant. — Matthew 25:21

The question for every person on this planet is the same question that Jesus asked Martha. Do you believe this? There's a final judgment coming no matter whether you believe it or not. But do you believe in Jesus? Have you asked him to be your resurrection life? Do you have him? To believe in him means you are a Christian. To reject him means you are not.

So remember your Creator, your judge in light of aging, in light of coming death, in light of the certainty of judgment, remember your Creator. As Bono said, in a way it's such a letdown, yet it isn't. Because only those who are willing to look at their deaths and give themselves to Jesus can truly live.

Rejoice

Finally, rejoice. Look at chapter 11 verses seven through 10. This may seem surprising to us, but listen to the teacher.

Light is sweet and it's pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. — Ecclesiastes 11:7

It's like those days, those crisp fall days when there's not a cloud in the sky and the sun is shining and life is good.

If a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. — Ecclesiastes 11:8

Enjoy your life.

Rejoice, oh young man, in your youth. Let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. — Ecclesiastes 11:9

Why? Because life is short.

Remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body. — Ecclesiastes 11:10

I find that both young people and old people need to be told these truths. In light of your coming death, in light of aging, you need to take time for joy.

Can I give you some personal examples? When I was in my twenties, I just couldn't wait for what was next. I felt always behind, always waiting for something to start. I spent my twenties looking forward, skipping what was right in front of me, trying to figure out my future career track. Are you doing that? Are you continually living in tomorrow? Or are you rejoicing in today and what's in front of you?

Are you enjoying God and his gifts of this day? Now I'm a middle aged man now, and our children are growing up and moving out. When we were younger and our kids were little, we were just exhausted all the time. I just couldn't wait for the season to end. The diapers and the sleeplessness and the discipline and all that comes with little kids. We have six boys, and I think that there probably should be a landfill named after us for all the diapers we've contributed to this planet. But now that we're starting to be parents of adults, I look back and realize how much fun we were having.

Know that so many of you are in those years. Are you complaining? Are you rejoicing in the little things? Are you taking time to enjoy your little people? Or are you just wishing these years away? Do you know that you're actually having fun right now? You are.

And I find that there's a grumpiness that comes with middle age. Life hasn't worked out like you thought. You're starting to feel a permanent condition of disappointment and loss. Your body is starting to betray you. There's always something to complain about. On Twitter, I follow an account called Best of Nextdoor. Now Nextdoor is a neighborhood app where people put up on the bulletin board online all the things that they're concerned about and end up being a list of complaints. Some people call it Twitter for old people. It's a Twitter account of real posts from this app Nextdoor, and it's mostly a catalog of complaints and grumblings about other neighbors. It would be hilarious if it were not so sad. But how many of us are just like that, complaining all the time, grumpy, unsatisfied, disappointed continually? Nothing is good enough. Nothing satisfies.

I'm not talking about sadness. There's a place for sadness, but I'm talking about general grumpiness. But listen to the teacher. This we find here is a command to rejoice, to enjoy your life. Does that surprise you? The Bible commands joy and happiness and delight. Think of that. We're commanded to give thanks to enjoy the short days we have.

That's not just here. Read the book of Exodus. The people of God were disciplined by God for their complaining and grumbling. Complaining and grumbling is a sin. This is why Christians should be the best rejoicers around. Christians should have the loudest tables at the restaurants. Christians should have the best Halloween candy, the king-size. Christians should cheer the loudest at the football games. Christians should be known for our rejoicing, our joy, our enjoyment of this life.

Here's a goal. What if our goal was to grow in joy as we got older? So many people become more grumpy, more entrenched in our ways, more stubborn, more vocal about our problems as we age. But as believers, we should be growing in joy, growing in more sanctified as we age, not less so. Think about this. What if your thirties would find you more loving than your twenties? Your forties marked by more joy than your thirties. Your fifties marked by more patience and peace than your forties. Your sixties find you more kind than in your fifties. Your seventies should mean you are more gentle than your sixties. Your eighties mean you're more self controlled than your seventies. Your nineties find you more faithful than your eighties. Is that happening to us?

The work of sanctification in the life of the Christian is the work of the Spirit of God in us. But I find it requires a heart that is hungry for Him, longing for him, wanting him to change us, for us to grow, looking for reasons to rejoice, looking to repent over irritability and pride and grumpiness. Is that you? Ask someone you trust. Am I a rejoicing person? Do I look for joy? Am I seeking to delight myself more and more in my God and what He is doing in the world?

Look, if you need help, I would suggest beginning a joy journal. Every day, picking one or two things that you are rejoicing in, that you find joy in. I've downloaded an iPhone app to help me do this. It's so simple, it's dumb, but try it.

Practice Resurrection

Finally, let me land here. Practice resurrection. Here's what I mean. I think about Lazarus after he was raised from the dead by Jesus. That's the context for when Jesus told these words to Martha:

I am the resurrection and the life. — John 11

He said it, and then he called her brother back from the dead. It's an amazing story there in John 11. Now we don't know much more about Lazarus' life, what it was like from that point forward. So all this is conjecture, but I'm going to ask you to use a little redemptive imagination with me. Lazarus, what was it like for him? Here's a man who had been dead. Yes, he would die again someday of old age or cancer or being kicked in the head by a mule but Lazarus was a walking miracle. A dead man come back to life and who knows that he's going to live forever.

You know, I wonder, did anything after that ever bother him again? I wonder if he ever felt worried or anxious or fearful after that. I bet that man laughed louder than anyone else around. Lazarus must have been an odd man indeed. In fact, the only place we see him again in the scriptures is at a dinner party, at a party.

But Christian, I want you to think about this man. This is your everyday reality. You are Lazarus. Of course, you will die of something. You have a shelf life, an expiration date, something will get you in the end. But resurrection is your future. You have died and been raised with Christ. Eternal life is your reality.

If you are a Christian, this is you. You are Lazarus. You have the resurrection and the life. What does it look like for you to embrace reality, to remember your creator, to rejoice instead of complaining, and to practice resurrection?

In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.