Where All Paths Lead (Afternoon)
Download MP3Good afternoon. Awesome. Hey. So, we are continuing our study of the book of Ecclesiastes this afternoon. If you look in your worship guide, if you've already seen it and you saw that I was going to be preaching and you saw how much text was in there and you started to get a little bit nervous, we are just gonna be in chapter 3.
Jeffrey Heine:Joel preached out of chapter 9 this morning. And if you wanna hear that, that'll be on the podcast later, and then you can get both. But, we're just gonna be in chapter 3, verses 9 through 20. But as we begin, what I would like is to read just 2 of those verses as we start. So if you have your worship guide or in your Bible, Ecclesiastes chapter 3, and we're gonna hear verses 1920.
Jeffrey Heine:And let us listen carefully, for this is God's word. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place.
Jeffrey Heine:All are from the dust, and to dust, all return. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Almighty and everlasting god, you alone are the creator of all that is seen and all that is unseen. You alone hold the days of our lives.
Jeffrey Heine:So we come to you in all humility and all confidence to ask for your grace to hear and to understand your word tonight. Help us, Spirit, to fix our eyes on Jesus and to look to him alone for all that we need in life and in death. So would you speak, Lord, for your servants are listening. We pray these things in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:As I mentioned, the last time that I preached from Ecclesiastes, the voice of Ecclesiastes is an old man referred to as Qoheleth, and that's a Hebrew noun that is often translated in the English Bibles as teacher or the preacher. And I said that Qoheleth is an ideal example of a philosopher. He's addressing a gathering of listeners, exploring the fundamental questions of life and existence and meaning. But Koheleth is not only a philosopher. As we saw earlier in chapter 3, Koheleth is also a poet.
Jeffrey Heine:He wrote, for everything, there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. Koheleth was such a good poet that 1000 of years later, after he wrote that poem, in 1959, Pete Seeger added music to it and added one word, and it became the number one song in America. One word, and Coheleth got 0 royalties. But Coheleth is a preacher, he is a philosopher, and he is a poet. And after poetically describing the universal, inevitable rhythms of life under the sun, Qoheleth returns to his assessment of what is hevel, what is vanity, what is fleeting.
Jeffrey Heine:And here, he engages more specifically on the problem of death. Now, death is a bread and butter topic for poets. For many poets, it becomes a preoccupation, almost a fixation. John Donne famously wrote, death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so. George Herbert wrote, death, thou wast once an uncouth hideous thing, nothing but bones.
Jeffrey Heine:And perhaps most famously, Emily Dickinson wrote, because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me. Throughout the centuries, death has been a well trod topic for poets and preachers and philosophers. They're all compelled to address the stark realities of life and to explore the deepest questions of existence. So it's not surprising then that death is a major theme for the preacher, philosopher, poet, Qoheleth. And I want to say here at the start that for many of us, most of us here, death is not merely a topic to be explored.
Jeffrey Heine:The vast majority of us here have experienced or are in the midst of experiencing great loss, loss of friends, family. And some of us are even having to face our own health and mortality even today. And so for you, this is not merely a topic for curious consideration, but a deeply lived experience. And so to you, I wanna say that I do not take your grieving lightly, and I do not wish to make a safe place like this, your church home, to feel uncomfortable for you. So I ask for your grace and your patience as we spend time in our passage tonight because I do believe that the lord has something for you in the midst of your grief.
Jeffrey Heine:It's often the work of philosophers and poets and preachers to address what we would rather ignore or wish that we could forget. But their task is essential because we each, at some point in our life, are confronted with the harsh truth. The reality that we cannot ignore these things forever and forgetting them is impossible. Qohelet is advanced in his years and nearing the end of his own life. And in his monologue of Ecclesiastes, he's offering us his ruthless assessment of the world around him.
Jeffrey Heine:Koheleth shares what he has observed, what he has seen under the sun, and he offers us his conclusions, what he has said in his heart. And in our passage today, Qohelet is offering us what he has seen and surmised about life and death. And he offers 4 observations, followed by 2 conclusions, and then one final, and I believe chief, observation. So let's look at these words of Koheleth together. Beginning in verse 10, you'll notice that each of these four observations that we're gonna walk through, they they each begin with I have seen or I have perceived.
Jeffrey Heine:So looking at verse 10. I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. Next observation.
Jeffrey Heine:I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live. Also, that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man. I perceive that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it.
Jeffrey Heine:God has done it so that the people fear before him. That which is already has been. That which is to be already has been, and God seeks what has been driven away. Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. So these are the 4 observations of Koheleth.
Jeffrey Heine:The first in verse 10, he's saying that God has given humanity work to do, toil with which to be busy. And God has made everything beautiful in its time. Koheleth is saying that the sovereignty of the Lord over the rhythms of life have beauty. And while God has put eternity into the hearts of humanity, humanity cannot see or discern all that God has done. And that's a tightly packed observation, but there is a theme running throughout.
Jeffrey Heine:That thread is that God is sovereign and infinite, and humanity is limited and finite. Kohelet has seen with his own eyes and knows this to be true. While God has put a longing for eternity into the hearts of humanity, Humans are restricted and limited to the temporary, the transient, the finite. And that's Kohelet's first observation in our passage. The second one, in verse 12, is saying that in light of our limitations and restrictions as humans, the best we can do in our limited days is to enjoy the creation that God has made, to find joy in our days under the sun as a gift from God.
Jeffrey Heine:This is also a running theme throughout Ecclesiastes. Some scholars believe that it's the main theme, and I think that there's some merit to that. Qohelet is saying that of all that he has seen with his eyes, this is as good as it gets for humanity. We ought to receive the gifts of God during our brief life, to enjoy our food and drink, to find joy in our work, and to try and receive our brief life as a gift from God. It's not a bad observation that he's made.
Jeffrey Heine:It's an ancient version of you only live once and carpe diem, seize the day, gather ye rosebuds while ye may. It's not a bad encouragement or an outlook to gain. 3rd observation, verse 14. While the hands of humanity are finite and passing, the work of God's hands are eternal. They will endure forever.
Jeffrey Heine:And understanding this critical distinction and difference should cause us to fear God. In articulating the difference between God and humanity, Kohelet is setting the stage for rightly seeing and understanding the way in which human lives are to be lived. And god has so graciously gifted these lives in creation, which leads to the 4th observation in verse 16. There, Koheleth says that he looked in the place of justice and found evil. And when he looked in the place of righteousness, even there, he found wickedness.
Jeffrey Heine:Koheleth is saying, if you go to the the most just place that you can think of, perhaps the halls of justice, civil servants entrusted with carrying out justice where laws are written or enforced, go to those places of law and order. And he says, I went there. I looked there. And even there, I found wickedness. And he says, go to the places of righteousness.
Jeffrey Heine:Go to the nonprofits, the churches, the cathedrals. Go to the places of morality and uprightness. He said, I went there. And when I went to those places, even there, I found wickedness. Kohelet says of humanity, I looked at the best you've come up with for justice and the best you have for righteousness, and even there I found wickedness.
Jeffrey Heine:Kohelas is shining a bright spotlight on the brokenness of our world, that even in the places of justice and righteousness, those places are still corrupted with evil and wickedness. He isn't saying that they're worthless or should be abandoned, but he just is saying that he's not surprised when sin is found among the just and the upright. This corruption is everywhere. And all 4 of these key observations are speaking to this distinction that Koheleth is making between God and humanity, the distinction between the Creator and the creation, the eternal and the temporal, the infinite and the finite, the righteous and just God and the broken and corrupted humanity. This, Koheleth observes, is an essential and fundamental truth of our reality.
Jeffrey Heine:God alone is god, and we are not god. And these observations lead Qoheleth to 2 conclusions. In light of these observations, these these things that he has seen perceived with his own eyes, Goheleth concludes, 1st in verse 17. Let's look together. So now he moves from the I see and I've perceived to the I said.
Jeffrey Heine:I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked. For there is a time for every matter and for every work. God will judge. That is the necessary outcome of the unrighteousness and wickedness that Kohelet has seen. God will judge the righteous and the wicked.
Jeffrey Heine:And don't forget that Qoheles just said that even the righteous are corrupted with wickedness, which means that no one escapes this necessary judgment. And this judgment isn't just out of the blue. It isn't God being vengeful or mean. It is the necessary rhythm of creation. Just like the time to plant and the time to sow, a time to be born and a time to die, wickedness must be met with judgment.
Jeffrey Heine:If you have ever longed for justice, true justice, for wrongs to be made right, then that is a longing for the judgment of God. Because only God's judgment is truly just, truly uncorrupted. And a few, like Koheleth, have seen the corruption that comes from wickedness and sin and longed for true justice to flow like a river. And that is your heart longing for the judgment of God to come. And Koheleth concludes in his heart that God will judge the righteous and the wicked.
Jeffrey Heine:There is a time for every matter and for every work, Which leads now to the second conclusion found in verse 18. I said in my heart, with regard to the children of man, that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. Koheleth concludes that God is using the sin induced consequence of death to teach humankind that we are but creatures. We are not the creator. We are not little gods.
Jeffrey Heine:We are creatures of his divine creation. And Koheleth goes on to expound on this conclusion in verses 19 and 20. And he does so in in a way that kind of resembles a proverb. He's offering these truisms about the lessons that God is teaching humanity through this consequence of death. Look at verse 19.
Jeffrey Heine:For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.
Jeffrey Heine:Qoheleth has observed and concluded that there is a fate that awaits all living things. All creatures have the same breath in their lungs, and eventually, all will meet the same end. It does not matter if you are righteous or wicked, if you are a human or an animal. That is the way of the world. All life was made from the dust of the earth, and to dust all living things will return.
Jeffrey Heine:That is the unavoidable fate that awaits all living things. No wealth, no power, no wisdom, no strength, no success can stop this fate from coming. You can try and fight it or forget it or pretend like it's not true. But in the end, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And that's what Kohelet has seen with his own eyes and what he has come to understand in his heart.
Jeffrey Heine:And as an old man late in his years in life, Koheleth has surely seen his share of death firsthand. That's the price of longevity. My grandmother, Opal, turns 99 this summer. She has let us know a couple of years back that she has decided to live to be a 100. So she was the oldest of 7 girls, Fern, Delma, Laura, Errol, Floral, and Georgina.
Jeffrey Heine:But all her sisters have passed away. Along with her first husband, my grandfather, and her second husband, Wayne. And she's had to bury 2 of her own 4 children. And all of her friends have long passed away too. I remember standing once with my grandmother at a funeral.
Jeffrey Heine:She's always been little. She's a lot littler now. I had my arm around her, and I remember thinking, how many times has she had to stand next to a grave of someone she loved? The minister was reading from 1st Corinthians 15. Oh, death, where is your victory?
Jeffrey Heine:Oh, death, where is your sting? I couldn't help but think in my mind right there, it's here. Here is the sting. This woman has had to stand at so many graves and cry so many tears. And feeling the sting of death so many times.
Jeffrey Heine:It's right here. Now I can only imagine that Qoheleth had buried many friends and family members in his long life. As I said, loss is the painful price of longevity. The cost of living to old age is the pain of so much loss. But even after experiencing that loss, Koheleth next poses a question he asks out loud for his listeners to hear in verse 21.
Jeffrey Heine:Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? Koheleth is admitting that he has no idea what happens to the spirit after death. This comment is indicative of the Hebrew beliefs at that time. The Hebrews were distinct from the dominant beliefs about the afterlife in ancient Mesopotamia. These other cultures had traditions of vengeful gods who ruled an underworld to torment and punish.
Jeffrey Heine:And part of the drive for pleasure and success in life was because of the coming torment and death. But other cultures, they had developed beliefs in reincarnation, ongoing cycles of life, while others held the belief of just total finality, nothingness. But the Hebrews, in contrast, had a simpler understanding of death as rest. Rest with their ancestors, rest with God. Later in chapter 9 of Ecclesiastes, Koheleth will say that in death we go to the dead.
Jeffrey Heine:Beyond that, a theology of life after death was not very developed, not until the New Testament. And so Koheleth, even in all of his wisdom and all of his understanding, he freely admits that he has no idea what happens after death. Who knows? He says. Maybe there's a distinction between man and beast.
Jeffrey Heine:Maybe one spirit goes up and the other goes down, but I don't know. I haven't died yet. I haven't seen what lies beyond life under the sun. After this admission of not knowing, Koheleth offers his final observation and a final question in our passage. Look at verse 22.
Jeffrey Heine:He said, so I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him? This is a refrain that I pointed out last time. Koheleth sees nothing better than rejoicing in work, for that's our lot. And Koheleth asks, who can show us what will happen after we die?
Jeffrey Heine:We can't see what comes after us. We we cannot control what will happen. So in light of these unchangeable limitations, we must live where we are in the time that we have. We must live our lot and seek to do so with joy. Throughout this section, Koheleth has emphasized the inevitability of death.
Jeffrey Heine:He says that when we accept the inevitability of death, we can focus our attention away from what we cannot control and place our attention on what we can affect. And that is receiving life as a gift from God and seeking the enjoyment of our days while we live under the sun. In our modern Western culture, the inevitability of death is generally understood and at the same time, aggressively ignored. This is due in part to entire businesses and industries who depend on us ignoring the inevitability of death. For example, the entertainment industry.
Jeffrey Heine:It depends on the idea of expendable and unlimited time. If if next to the little countdown on Netflix or Hulu that's counting down the seconds to the next episode that's about to play, if next to that there was a another, a second clock that was ticking away the remaining minutes of your life, you might not keep watching. And then there are the 1,000,000,000 of dollars made off of celebrity news and gossip. And all of that might not have the same appeal if you were truly reminded that you do not know these people and you never will, and the people who are actually in your life, who should matter much more, are passing away. We pour our time and our money into that which will not last and will never satisfy.
Jeffrey Heine:And we do this in part to distract ourselves from the inevitability of death. And while these distractions might take our minds off of death for a moment, they do nothing to stop the march of time. Koheleth is giving his listeners a realistic and ruthless assessment of reality. And part of that reality is death, the unavoidable inevitability of death. But if we read the book of Ecclesiastes in view of the book of Genesis, which I believe we are expected to do by the author, then we have to counter the inevitability of death with the unacceptability of death.
Jeffrey Heine:Let me say that again. We have to counter the inevitability of death with the unacceptability of death. Here's what I mean by that. While there's a great deal of good to be found in facing the reality as it is, and certainly, death is part of that reality, as God's children, we must also hold fast to the truth that death is a consequence of the fall and humanity's rebellion against God, which means that while we can and should join Qoheleth in admitting the inevitability of death, At the same time, we must defiantly declare the unacceptability of death. In other words, yes, this is how things are.
Jeffrey Heine:Qohelet is right. But this is not how things should be. If you have ever grieved the loss of someone that you love, part of that feeling of grief is knowing that this is not how things should be. And if this is not how things should be, if this is not how God desires life under the sun to be, if death is the result of the fall in our rebellion against God, then we cannot view life and death with a mere carpe diem seize the day attitude. Seize the day doesn't cut it because it's not the whole picture.
Jeffrey Heine:When things feel upside down for me, disrupted and confusing as the past weeks certainly have for me, I like to go back to old things, things that have stood firm through time and other chaos. So I was reading earlier this week an account of the martyrdom of the early church father, Polycarp. Polycarp was a bishop in Turkey born about 30 years after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, an early church tradition held that Polycarp was discipled by the apostle John. And when Polycarp was in his late eighties, about to turn 90, the Roman governor was rounding up Christians for public execution. And after he was arrested, Polycarp was brought into a stadium in the city of Smyrna, and row the Roman governor demanded that Polycarp deny Jesus and swear an oath to Caesar.
Jeffrey Heine:Polycarp refused. He found it laughable that the governor thought that he would deny Jesus. It was unfathomable to him. Polycarp was immediately condemned to death, to be burned at the stake. And when the soldiers went to nail him to the stake, the 86 year old Polycarp said, that won't be necessary.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm not gonna try and escape these flames. I'll stand here on my own. And so Polycarp stood. And before the fire was lit, he began to pray. And this is part of what he prayed.
Jeffrey Heine:I bless you because you have considered me worthy of this day and hour so that I might receive a place among the number of the martyrs in the cup of Christ, to the resurrection, to eternal life both of soul and body, and the incorruptibility of the Holy Spirit. May I be received among them in your presence today, Jesus, as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as you have prepared and revealed beforehand and have now accomplished, you who are undeceiving and true God. For this reason, indeed, for all things, I praise you, I bless you, I glorify you through the eternal and heavenly high priest, Jesus Christ, your beloved son, through whom be glory to you with him and the Holy Spirit, both now and for the ages to come. Amen. When he said amen, they lit the fire.
Jeffrey Heine:A mighty fire began to roar. The widespread martyrdom in the early church and the continued martyrdom of Christians today, it does not make sense if our best hope is to simply enjoy every day to the fullest. That can't be it. Seize the day cannot be our best hope. Our best hope is not to squeeze the most out of our brief life while we have it.
Jeffrey Heine:Our hope is not that we make the most of our days and resign ourselves to the inevitability of death. Our hope is that Jesus took on our sin to liberate us from the tyranny of death and to silence the grave forever. Koheleth is right to point out the inevitability of death. We need that sober assessment. We need to be reminded of these things.
Jeffrey Heine:Karl Barth, a 20th century Swiss theologian, once wrote these words, quote, what is the meaning of man's life? It means hurrying to the grave. Man is hurrying to meet his past. The past in which there is no more future will be the final thing. All that will have been and will have been corrupted, perhaps a memory, though, will remain so long as there are men who like to remember us.
Jeffrey Heine:But someday, they too will die, and then this memory too will pass away. There is no great name in history which will not someday or another have become a forgotten name. That is the judgment of man, that in the grave he drops into forgottenness. There is nothing else to be done with sinful man except to bury him and forget him, end quote. Karl and Coheleth would have gotten along great.
Jeffrey Heine:They're both right. We cannot numb ourselves into pretending that death is not inevitable. But we cannot resign ourselves to the lie that inevitability means acceptability. Because Carl goes on to say this, quote, the resurrection of Jesus is the great pledge of our hope. And simultaneously, this future is already present.
Jeffrey Heine:It is the proclamation of a victory already won. The resurrection of Jesus tells us that our enemies, sin, the curse and death are beaten. We must still reckon with them, but fundamentally, we must cease to fear them anymore. If you have heard the Easter message, you can no longer run around with a tragic face and lead a humorless existence of a man with no hope. One thing still holds, and only this one thing, Jesus is the victor.
Jeffrey Heine:We are invited and summoned to take seriously the victory of God's glory in Jesus and to be joyful in him. Then we may live in thankfulness and not in fear. The resurrection of Jesus proclaims this victory. We must listen to it and let it tell us the story, how there was an empty grave, and new life beyond death became visible, end quote. Our hope is that Jesus, through his own death and victory over the grave, revoked the acceptability of death.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus took on sin and death and the grave and in his infinite glory and power denied the acceptability of death in defeating the grave. Seizing the day and enjoying every meal, they only have their value if the enemy of death is actually defeated. The day is only worth seizing because Jesus lives. And because of the victory of Jesus, every good meal with friends, every embrace of a family member, all the dancing, the laughing, every good day under the sun, they are a resilient and defiant joy that shout back at death, you have been defeated. Defeated not by a happier worldview or a positive outlook, not a cure for a new disease.
Jeffrey Heine:Death has been defeated by the Son of God, Jesus, our King, truly and finally. Jesus is our hope in life and death because Jesus came to abolish death and to bring life and immortality to light. About 10 years ago, I was driving my daughter June down the highway in Tennessee. And as a dad of 2 little girls at the time, I a a few times, I drove, my kids to Kentucky by myself so I knew every clean bath room on I 65. There's one exit, where there's a large cemetery on the hillside.
Jeffrey Heine:And June was about 3 years old, and she asked what it was. And I told her it was a cemetery where people were buried after they died. And she asked why there were so many flowers, because it looked like a garden. And I said that it's because the friends and the family of the person who died put them there. And she asked why they would do that since, in her words, they're not there anymore.
Jeffrey Heine:I asked her to tell me more about what she meant, and she said, and these are the words that rang in my heart and my mind for years to come. She said, they're not there anymore because nobody stays in the grave. Because it was at that moment that I realized that her knowledge of the resurrection of Jesus had completely upended and redefined her understanding of death. And I longed for such confidence in my own heart because Jesus, through His life and death and resurrection, redefines our life, our death, and our life to come. Do you not know?
Jeffrey Heine:The apostle Paul says to the Romans. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him in baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life. For we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. To God be the glory in our lives, in our deaths, and in our life to come.
Jeffrey Heine:Let's pray. Lord, help us to see rightly the great and glorious news of the resurrection of Jesus. And spirit, would you redefine in our understanding the confidence that we can have in Jesus, the hope that we can have, even as we face the inevitability of death, that Jesus has taken on death itself and conquered the grave. Strengthen a spirit to believe these things all the more tonight with all praise and all glory to Christ our King, in whose name we pray these things. Amen.
