The Great Return; Ecclesiastes 3, Proverbs 19

May the mumbling commence!

Everything has its season.  So everyone has their season.  There is a time to live and a time to die.  I have been reading the blog that a friend of mine at seminary wrote as she approached her death due to cancer.

There it is – from dust we come from dust we return.  Many of us may have heard words like these ones this past Ash Wednesday.  It is this ultimate destination that preoccupies the author of Ecclesiastes in the last part of chapter three.  Read it below:

Moreover I saw under the sun:

In the place of judgment,

Wickedness was there;

And in the place of righteousness,

Iniquity was there. 

I said in my heart,

"God shall judge the righteous and the wicked,

For there is a time there for every purpose and for every work." 

I said in my heart, "Concerning the condition of the sons of men, God tests them, that they may see that they themselves are like animals."  For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity.  All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. 

Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth?  So I perceived that nothing is better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his heritage. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him? (Verses 16-22)

No one gets out of here alive.  What do we do with that truth?  It is true of all life.  Life and death are bound together.  Death to one means life to another.

It is no wonder that the author speaks of vanity.  If we only had this existence, then all would seem vain.  It is this existence and its eventual end that Christ rescues us.  Think you don’t need rescuing?  Think again.

As we walk this forty days of penitence that is Lent, let us journey toward the Way of Jesus.  The Way of Jesus does not respect Christianity as we know it.  It does not respect any one denomination or any church without denomination.  The Way of Jesus persistently asks us to FOLLOW JESUS.

In the Way of Jesus vanity is transformed into eternity.  Praise God.  Join the journey.  Follow Christ Jesus.

And let us remember from whence we came.  It will keep us humble – forsaking our own glory for the glory of the Risen One.  It will keep us from devising our own retribution and revenge that we try to cloak with the terms justice and righteousness.  Read from Proverbs chapter nineteen:

The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger,

And his glory is to overlook a transgression. (Verse 11)   

Enough mumbling for now…

Peace Out