Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. Read Eccl 11:7-12:8 together. What does the Preacher want us to remember?
2. How does God's commitment to your joy change about how you live your life? How you view God?
3. What keeps you from seriously thinking about your death? What is the benefit of being aware of death?
4. What does this passage offer the young person? What does it offer the old?
5. What does it look like to follow Paul's example in 2 Cor 4:16, 5:1-2?
Cotton Mather, the 17th century New England minister, once encouraged his congregation to take mundane matters in life as opportunities to consider their own death: “When we sit at our tables, let us think, I shall shortly be myself a morsel for the worms. When we rest in our lodgings, let us think, A cold grave will shortly be my bed. And when we view the chests, where we put our treasures, let us think, A little black chest is that wherein I myself shortly may be locked up.”
Want to invite him to a dinner party?
Mather was the father of fourteen children. He was a prominent citizen in New England, well paid, and had access to the best medical care money could buy at the time. Yet he buried thirteen—all but one—of his children. No wonder he thought frequently of death. But it wasn’t only him. In a popular text book for educating children in the 18th century, The New England Primer, we find a series of rhymes and pictures to teach young children the alphabet, much like we do today: “A is for alligator, B is for ball, etc.” But let me pick out a couple that would be seen as very troubling for young children learning their ABC’s today. Next to the letter T there was a picture of a skeleton holding an hourglass in one hand and reaper’s scythe in the other. The verse: “Time cuts down all / Both great and small.” Next to the letter X there is the figure of an elaborately dressed figure on a funerary pyre, with this rhyme: “Xerxes the great did die / And so must you and I.” “They were teaching their children to read by reminding them they would die,” (Remember Death, Matt McCullough, 44-45).
In previous centuries, death was common, but sex was considered taboo—now, the opposite is true. We feel free to speak frankly about sex, but feel uneasy in discussing death.
Children in the 19th century were told that babies came from storks. Those same children, however, would have likely witnessed death firsthand as their grandparents, parents, and siblings would have died before them in their homes. The average life expectancy when Cotton Mather was alive was around 30 years old. Childbirth, fevers, minor infections…all of these were often death sentences. So, rather than ignore death, previous generations thought it best to confront it head on.
We don’t do this. Modern medicine—thanks be to God—has made our lives both longer and more comfortable. What was a death sentence or an unfixable pain to previous generations, isn’t for us. Less felicitously, the rise of senior care homes have moved the elderly out of our homes and so further distanced us from old age and death. And more diabolically, the ever present allure of perpetual youth through cosmetics, surgery, and extreme diets holds out for us the idea that smooth skin and athletic physiques are just one procedure, one anti-aging cream, one juice cleanse away. All of this together pushes the inevitable reality far from our minds—death will come for us, and most likely senility, weakness, and wrinkles will arrive first. And we, unlike the rest of human history, are poorly prepared for it.
But, what if remembering our death and the fragility of our lives was actually a blessing?
“If the gospel seems irrelevant to our daily lives, that is our fault, not the gospel’s. For if death is not a daily reality, then Christ’s triumph over death is neither daily nor real. Worship and proclamation and even faith itself take on a dream-like, unreal air, and Jesus is reduced to something like a long-term insurance policy, filed and forgotten—whereas he can be our necessary ally, an immediate, continuing friend, the holy destroyer of death and the devil, my own beautiful savior.” - Walter Wangerin, Mourning into Dancing
7 Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. 8 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. 9 Rejoice, O 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. 10 Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.
1 Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; 2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, 3 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, 4 and the doors on the street are shut—when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low— 5 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— 6 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, 7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. 8 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.
- Eccl 11:7-12:8
Rejoice in Life, Remember Death
7 Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. 8 So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all;
- Eccl 11:7-8a
The Preacher uses “light” as a metaphor for being alive, as will become clear in the second half of verse 8, where darkness is used for death. There are a couple of instances where, in light of the grave injustices in the world, the Preacher has spoken in such a way that sounds almost as if he believed it were better to be dead than alive (see Eccl 4:2-3, 6:3-5). But here we see clearly that the Preacher believes that life is a gift, a sweet and pleasant gift. Why does he choose seeing the “sun” as the metaphor for all of life? Because it is the simplest picture of what it means to be alive. You don’t need to accomplish remarkable things or enjoy the pleasures of a palace to rejoice in life. Just open the shudders of your life, and take in the goodness of the world around you. Go on a walk, feel the sun on your face, breathe in the fresh air, notice the autumn leaves.
Notice what is being commanded here: if God gives you many years, rejoice in them! Moses teaches us that our lives are typically seventy years, maybe eighty if we are strong (Ps 90:10). What is God’s will for us if we are given 70, 80, 90+ years? Rejoice! Does God care about you being happy? Of course He does. Why else would He make a world with peanut butter, with rolling green hills, with salmon you can catch, and hot showers? Why do babies naturally giggle when you play peek-a-boo with them? God has made us for joy. In fact, He commands us to be enjoy life. Here is a verse tucked away in a relatively obscure part of the Bible that you’ve probably never paid attention to before:
“Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies” - Deut 28:47-48
God is threatening His people with punishment if they will not enjoy Him and the bounty He has provided. Do you even have a category for that? We tend to assume that the holiest person in the world is the most austere, thin, and uptight person in the world—those who have no time to laugh or flop into a hammock and enjoy a sunny afternoon on vacation. But God is not honored by joyless, cold worshippers. God has poured out ten thousand blessings on us everyday in the created world around us, and He didn’t do it so that we would ignore them all. If you get your child a present, do you feel honored by them refusing to open it? By refusing to play with the toy? No—you gave them the present because you delight in seeing them enjoy it! And their joy in the present is meant to pull their affections towards you! They play with the car or train or doll and run over and hug you and say “Thank you so much, mom, dad!” Their delight is your delight, and your gift is intended to bring them back in joy to the giver. It is no different with God.
In Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, the demon Screwtape is repulsed by God’s obsession with our joy:
“He’s a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade…Out at sea, out in his Sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure…He has filled his world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without him minding in the least—sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working.”
Grumpiness, ingratitude, a cool indifference that never lets itself enjoy anything fully for fear of looking dumb, a suspicion towards joy, miserliness, taking yourself too seriously, instrumentalizing everything as a means to an end…these are sins to be repented of. God is not glorified by joyless submission. God is most glorified when we receive the gifts He has given us…from the most precious gift of all, Christ, to the billions of divinely implanted joys in the created world…when we receive them with gratitude and enjoy them before our Maker.
Rejoice in life. And remember death.
*but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.
- Eccl 11:8b*
Why should you enjoy all the years of your life? Because death is coming. In fact, all that comes is vanity. The word “vanity” literally means a vapor or smoke. Metaphorically, it means somethings that is either transient, brief (like wisp of smoke in the wind); or it means something baffling, puzzling, ungraspable (like trying to grab smoke). Precisely what the Preacher means here with this statement depends on what he is referring to by “all that comes.” If by “all that comes” he means death, then he could be using vanity in the sense of enigmatic, confusing, and hard to understand—so, enjoy life now, because death is a dark, scary mystery that we don’t understand. Or, if “all that comes” is referring to the many years of your life, then the Preacher would be telling us that the many years are actually quite short, brief, like a smoke that is here now and quickly gone, so enjoy the few years you have. Either way, the Preacher is clearly underlining the firm, unavoidable reality: death will come. The black train will eventually reach its station.
But why bring this up immediately after telling you to enjoy life? Doesn’t thinking about death kind of put a damper on enjoying life? The next time you are hanging out with friends and having a good time, just try throwing out “You ever think about how we are all gonna die but never know when it will happen?” You likely won’t be asked to hang out again. Why is the Preacher doing this? Why has he done this repeatedly throughout his book? The serpent’s initial lie “You shall not die” has a firm grip in our heart. And the Preacher here is wanting to break that spell. Not because he is a killjoy, but because he wants to kill what actually kills your joy!
If you live your life ignoring death, you won’t be able to enjoy life. How?
- Death reminds us that tomorrow is not guaranteed. We will get to life after death in time, but the author of Ecclesiastes isn’t only concerned with what happens after death, but he is very concerned with how to enjoy this life. And if death is not a reality to you, then you will live as if tomorrow, and next year, and the years after are a certainty; they are a vast highway that stretches so far out ahead of you, you cannot even see the final destination. But if you think tomorrow is a given, then you’ll take today for granted. If you knew that by the end of this year you would die, how would that alter your priorities? What would you do with your free time? With your money? With your family?
- Death reminds us that we aren’t God. Everything that rides on us, that depends on us, one day will have to manage without us. Which means we are less important and less essential than we think. And that frees us from being so anxious and stressed out like everything does depend on us. Why does Jesus tell us not to worry about tomorrow, but to only think about today? Why not freak out about your clothes and food? Because if God provides for the birds and the lilies, who neither toil nor spin, He will provide for you. What’s Jesus’ point? Anxiety and stress are manifestations of covert, functional atheism. I have to stress about the future, I have to overextend myself, I have to insert myself into the problem, because if I don’t, who will? God will. And death is a hard reminder that one day, all of the things that you carried, will be set down.
- Death reminds us that we need a joy and identity that persists beyond the grave. Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, thought a lot about death, in particular how we tend to ignore death and live like we are immortal. But when we do that, he noticed that something strange happens to us: we begin to invest an inordinate amount of concern and attachment to things like our job, our possessions, our standing in society. While we become “strangely insensitive” to the tragedy of death, Pascal notes that we become strangely “sensitive to minor things.” Pascal explains: “They fear the most trifling things, foresee and feel them; and the same man who spends so many days and nights in fury and despair at losing some office or at some imaginary affront to his honor is the very one who knows that he is going to lose everything through death but feels neither anxiety nor emotion.”
When we live like death is a fiction, then we turn to our jobs, our marriages, our families, our hobbies with the assumption that they are intended to provide us with a joy, a hope, an identity that only God can give. Death is a sharp corrective that tells me, one day I will have everything this world offers me taken away from me. Which means I need an identity and hope and joy that is more durable and lasting than anything else this world offers. And when I realize that, then I stop freighting those things with a weight that they cannot carry, that they were never intended to carry. I stop expecting my children, my wife, my work, my education to complete me, to answer every problem, to satisfy my deepest needs. When my children disappoint me, I don’t explode at them or fall into despair—they aren’t my god. Which means, I am free to just enjoy them, instead of using them to fix me, to sustain me. In the same way a sharp snap to a beach towel shakes the dust off of it, so too does death forcefully shake false notions about life out of us.
Rejoice in Youth, Remember God
9 Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth.
- Eccl 11:9a
As we have said before, the book of Ecclesiastes represents the wisdom of an old man being passed on to a younger man. And with no resentment or bitterness or condescension, one thing the older Preacher encourages his young reader to do is to simply enjoy being young. Now, youth is obviously a relative term. Victor Hugo said that “Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.” Earlier this week, my son came up to me and said, “Dad, watch this!” And he proceeded to get down onto his hands and feet, and then bear crawled down the hallway like a wild animal as quickly as I would have gone down the hallway, were I running. He popped up and said, “Can you do that, dad?” And I thought, I don’t even want to imagine what would happen to me if I tried to do that. If you are under the age of 18, your body is of rubber and magic. You can do things that I cannot. But, to many of you looking at me, you are probably thinking: You have no idea, Marc.
Every generation looks at the previous generation as the younger generation. The Preacher’s point is that one aspect of enjoying the “many years of life” God gives us, is to enjoy the youth—whatever that may be—that we have. It is likely that the Preacher is imagining “youth” to constitute anyone who has not yet reached the old age he poetically describes in verses 2-5 of chapter twelve.
So, what does it mean to rejoice in your youth? Again, we will be surprised at the liberality the Preacher prescribes:
Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. - Eccl 11:9b
What does that mean? Let’s look at some other translations:
“Do everything you want to do; take it all in.” - NLT
Follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes, - NET
Follow the impulses of your heart. If something looks good to you, pursue it. - The Message
Young person in this room: are you unsure about what God’s will for your life is? What career should you pursue? Who should you marry? What car should you buy? What college should you attend? Should you go to college? Should you go backpacking for a month in the summer? What do you want to do with your life?
The Preacher has a simple piece of advice: What do you want? What sounds good? Don’t succumb to analysis paralysis. Don’t feel like you need all the information and 100% certainty about what to do. Don’t wait for God to spell it out in the sky. Pray. Ask God for wisdom. Speak with your parents, talk to your pastors, talk to other church members. Do some research. But, at the end of the day, most of life’s decisions are decisions that you make based on the imprecise process of sifting your desires, getting input from others, and just making a choice.
But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. - Eccl 11:9c
I don’t think this is the Preacher assuming that all the decisions you make in your youth are going to be inherently bad and God is going to condemn you for them. I think it is simply a reminder that there are guardrails to the decisions you make, and to the manner in which you pursue joy in your youth. He is here telling you: follow your heart! But not if your heart leads you into sin, into something foolish.
Augustine had a simple maxim: “Love God and do what you want.” If you love God, your desires will be shaped by God, so you will be free to pursue what you desire. If you love God, your heart won’t crave what God hates, your desires won’t long for what God’s Word condemns. Remember: God is for your joy! So if His Word forbids something—if you find a desire in your heart that runs contrary to what the Bible says—remember: God’s commands are intended to increase our joy! Don’t jump off the pathway of joy to slide down into the bog of destruction. It isn’t worth it!
But this isn’t the end of the advice the Preacher has for the young person:
10 Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. - Eccl 11:10
Youth and the dawn of life are “vanity.” That is, they are short, they are brief. Youth, as the old saying goes, is wasted on the young. You don’t realize what freedom, what health, what strength you have…till you don’t have it anymore. So, young person in this room, listen! Remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body.
To put this rather basically, the author is encouraging you to not fill your heart with anxiety and frustration, and to take care of your body. Don’t let yourself disintegrate internally, or externally. This can be pursued in simple ways through getting enough sleep, pursuing exercise and a healthy diet, avoiding unhealthy habits, not living like your body is invincible and bulletproof. One day, your metabolism is going to slow down, your joints aren’t going to be so resilient, your muscles won’t be so flexible—so, while you are young, set a trajectory of health for the future. But this is pursued more seriously by not letting your heart boil in anxiety, anger, bitterness, and fear. How do you do that?
Remember God
Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; - Eccl 12:1
Why are young people particularly told to remember God? Because when you are young, and strong, and the future seems so bright, and the world is full of opportunities and experiences…it can be easy to forget God, to forget your Creator. Why do you think he uses that word? Because when you’re young, maybe you chafe under the authority of your parents, and you want to be your own person. You don’t want to be told what to do. But, you are not your own. God created you, and therefore He owns you. To live like religion is something you’ll figure out later. You want to experience the world.
If you are thirteen, fifteen, eighteen—hear me out: you are always building the house of life that you will live in. The decisions and choices you make now, will affect your future. Don’t believe me? Find someone who is ten or twenty years older than you and ask them if there are any sins or pains in their life now that began from a choice they made as a teenager.
before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, - Eccl 12:2
This is a rather intense way of reinforcing the image he used earlier of death: darkness. No sun, moon, or stars—only dark clouds gather around. But then, he changes the image to that of a great house. This is likely an allegorical description of a human body slowly falling into disrepair, so I will try to explain what each image represents as we read:
in the day when the keepers of the house (hands) tremble, and the strong men (legs) are bent, and the grinders (teeth) cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows (eyes) are dimmed, 4 and the doors (ears) on the street are shut—when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low (despite hearing failing, your sleep is easily disturbed)— 5 they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way (a fall when you are old can be a disaster); the almond tree blossoms (your hair is white), the grasshopper drags itself along (you move slowly, shuffle along), and desire fails (low libido, low appetites), because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets— Eccl 12:3-5
It is a graphic picture of what awaits us all, if the Lord gives us a long life. At the gym that I go to, there is an older man who uses a screwdriver to pull the heel of shoes up after he wedges his feet in, because he cannot bend over to use his hands. And as strong, young men pass him by, he puffs and wheezes to get his socks on and tie his shoes. And when I see him I think: one day, me. At that gym, they are advertising a new device that can scan your body and tell you data about your health and body. Two charts grabbed my attention. One was an analysis of the amount of muscle you had on your body, the other of the amount of fat. And the chart projects across the decades of life how much of each you’ll have—and it showed that for strength, I should expect a slow descent, and with fat, a slow rise. Youth is brief, here now, quickly gone. You can take care of yourself, eat clean, exercise--and you should!--but, at the end of the day, the grave wins.
The Preacher finishes with a final flourish:
...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, 7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. 8 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity. - Eccl 12:6-7
Two images are being used here: one (the cord and bowl), is that of a lamp; the other (the pitcher and wheel), is that of a well. The cord snaps, and so the bowl shatters. The pitcher breaks and the wheel snaps. Light and water, extinguished, spilled--life ends in tragedy. Our bodies recycle back into the dirt from which they were taken and God recalls the spirit He has given. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
Everything is short. Your life is shorter than you think. You have less time than you think.
You're not as strong as you think. The future is not as certain as you think. And if you are relying on your youth right now, the fact that you feel strong, you can run up the stairs and you're fine.
You can chase after the bus when you miss it, and you're okay. If you're relying on those markers and all of the opportunities that youth gives you as a certainty that you don't have to think about death, then Ecclesiastes is here to yell at you, don't waste your life by thinking that you have forever. Deal with death now.
Think about what old age is going to bring, and set your affairs in order.
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the 2nd Corinthians, he testifies to his own weakness and fragility. He describes his body like a tent, a tent that has been worn out after decades of use. I don't know if you've ever had a tent last that long, but the idea obviously is that a tent is not meant to last very long.
It's a temporary structure. And he says, that's what your body is like. But that doesn't discourage him. Two reasons:
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. - 2 Cor 4:16
That's his first reason. And if you consider yourself a Christian in this room, I just want to ask you, do you find inner renewal day by day? Or are you relying on the pleasant circumstances of an outer life?
Good health, you feel good about yourself, family's well, jobs well, lots of money. Are you relying on that? That wasn't Paul's answer.
Though our life is wasting away and marching to the grave, there is an inner source of strength you can have in Christ. And that inner source of strength comes to the second thing Paul says.
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, - 2 Cor 5:1-2
For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly calling. Maybe your life groans. Maybe your body groans.
Your family groans. There is pain and frustration, and it feels like you just wish this life would change. Paul is inviting you, Ecclesiastes is inviting you to look at the dark clouds that are circling around you, and remember that there is hope that can go beyond the grave.
Jesus Christ came not just to make your life comfortable now, but to punch a hole through the black wall of death and show you that there is light. He has come to take what is most terrifying about death, your sins, and remove them from you.
So that as the grave approaches, your hands start to shake, you feel your mind beginning to cloud, old age comes in, you can know: There's light. There's life.
There's hope. There's joy. And that is the eternal, internal renewing that Paul has day by day.
I know where I'm going. Do you know where you're going?
Maybe you harbor deep reservations about Christianity and faith. No matter what you think, you do know you're going to die. And you can't avoid it.
Do you know what will happen? Are you ready? Let me invite you now to get ready by coming to the one who is a holy destroyer of death, who has taken your sins away from you and has conquered Satan.
And he has now blazed a path that you can follow with him to life eternal, if you will, but trust in him and follow him.
