The Hard Truth of Life, Death, Grief, and Eternity
Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash
Then the dust ⌞of mortals⌟ goes back to the ground as it was before, and the breath of life goes back to God who gave it.
“Absolutely pointless!” says the spokesman. “Everything is pointless!” (Eccl 12:7-8 GW) [context– Eccl 12:1-8]
Grief and Grieving
We don’t do grief well. In a general sense, American’s tend to deny it, stuff it, or push through it as swiftly as possible—at least on an individual level.
We don’t know what to do with grief. We seem to do better with anger than sadness.
There are exceptions, of course. When a natural disaster impacts whole towns or a tragic event like the terrorism of the 9-11 tragedy impacts the nation, then we can grieve together.
But even when we experience grief as a whole community or nation, we are quick to work at recovering from the disaster or tragedy. Oftentimes, outside help comes to assist with the recovery. This is a good trait.
However, we Americans do recovery better than grief. The real work of grief is often set aside to do the work of recovery.
The reality of grief is unavoidable. It shows up at times and in ways, we don’t expect. It might be anticipated in cases of long-term illness but grief still tends to impose itself on us in unexpected ways.
My role as a pastor, as it is for any pastor, required me to deal with grief in many ways with many people over the years. Honestly, I wasn’t ready to handle this responsibility at first. So, I read about grief to understand it as best I could.
I had to learn to say little and just be present with those who mourned. I saw that people grieve in different ways and in their own time.
Of course, grief is something my wife and I dealt with as overseas missionaries and with our own families through the loss of siblings, parents, and grandparents.
But grief isn’t just about death. Grief is a response to a loss.
It can be physical and psychological, but it’s always real.
Insights
These few verses in Chapter 12 are a poetic description of the end of life under the sun. These four metaphorical phrases are euphemisms—ways to describe death in a more pleasant way.
People have used many different euphemisms for death since ancient days. Instead of saying, “well, they’re dead,” we use expressions like—he’s passed away, gone to meet his Maker, asleep in Christ, or entered into eternity.
Many not-so-euphemistic expressions for death are also used such as—kicked the bucket, pushing up daisies, or he’s six-feet-under.
Death is the final stage of life under the sun.
But for those of us who trust in God, death is not the final stage of life.
This is implied in verse 7 and in Chapter 11:9. Earlier in Ecclesiastes, Solomon reminds us why we have hope beyond physical death and questions about life under the sun and life after death.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. (Eccl 3:11 NKJV)
There are two primary thoughts Solomon would have us to consider in verse 7 of Chapter 12—
life under the sun has a beginning and an end
life under the sun is very temporary when contrasted to eternity
When God created humanity, our physical bodies were composed of the basic elements of the earth (dust) and God breathed life into us (spirit) so we became living beings (Gen 2:7).
The burial of the body and return of the spirit to God is the cycle of life under the sun, as Solomon put it earlier—
To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: (Eccl 3:1 NKJV)
And yet, in comparison to eternity life under the sun is short. It’s easy to have a cynical view of this as “pointless, futile, or vanity.” But we need to go back to the original word in Hebrew that is translated as pointless. It’s hevel.
This word is used for wind, breath, and vapor in a literal sense but its figurative sense gives us the idea of lacking substance or concrete existence. This temporary or unsubstantial sense leads to the idea of everything being pointless, futile, or vanity.
Life under the sun is pointless unless we acknowledge God as our Creator who gives purpose to our lives and provides us with hope beyond life on the earth because we trust in Him.
Existential Reflections
Grief is an emotional response to a loss or major change in our life. When we lose someone we love, it’s a major change in our life. And major changes in life bring certain losses as we all experienced with the Covid-19 pandemic.
We all grieve in different ways and the grieving process has different stages. A lot has been written and said about what a healthy grieving process is. But I’ve found this to be very personal for each of us.
Not long ago, I spoke with a woman who was grieving the loss of her husband along with the many facets of their relationship. I encouraged her that no one fully knows her loss though others may have similar experiences. She and her husband shared a relationship unique to them.
As it says in Proverbs—
The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger can share its joy. (Prov 14:10 GW)
I know my own grieving process varies. Before my family and I moved to the Philippines, our church held a special service for us. We started the church and poured twelve years of our life into this ministry and held many close relationships with other families in the church.
During a certain song, I burst out in a torrent of tears and grief. It took everyone by surprise including me. When that expression of grief was over, I felt relieved and ready to move on.
I’ve had the opportunity to care for both of my parents in their last years and I’m glad I did. But my grieving process for both of them was different than my emotional outburst before moving overseas. It was also different than my sister’s experience.
As I processed why this might be, I realized how I’d been grieving the loss of each of my parents before they died. I seemed to grieve in bits as I saw their decline towards death.
When I read Solomon’s description of death and dying in the first seven verses of Chapter 12, it resonates with me. Even the process of death and dying has a season and purpose to it when we take a step back to observe it as a whole.
When we are young, we need to remember our Creator. Life is a lot shorter than it seems when we’re young. When we feel invincible and almost immortal.
As we age, we need to remember our Creator before we get to the last stages of death and while in that end-of-life stage. Each life under the sun has meaning and purpose.
Each life is a season within all the seasons of life under the sun among other generations.
One more thought about all this.
Not only do we need to remember our Creator, but we also need to remind others about our Creator.
This is an important part of the significance of our life under the sun for those of us who have a personal relationship with our Creator.
This is our purpose as children of the Creator of all life.
This is an excerpt from my newest book available on Amazon! Glimmers of Light in the Darkness of Life
The Scripture text for this devotional study can be found by clicking the blue button link– “Ecclesiastes Chap 12” [I’ve used God’s Word Translation (GW) for ease of reading but the button link will take you to the text in a parallel version with the NKJV text.]
Also, for further commentary, I recommend Enduring Word by Ptr David Guzik.
