Ecclesiastes 3: Timeless Words

In many of the funeral services I conduct, I incorporate Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 as a frame for talking about the life of the deceased.

The beginning verses of Ecclesiastes 3 is my "go to" text because of their poetic beauty in recognizing that life consists of moments in which quite different actions may be equally suitable.  Indeed, the wisdom here is that "for everything there is a season" (vs. 1).  In other words, God has given us a whole range of human experiences: grief, laughter, construction, destruction, planting, harvesting, love and hate.  All are right in their own time.  The challenge of life is to determine which experience is apt for that particular moment in which we find ourselves living.

The apparent relativity of these verses would probably come as a shock to some Christian believers.  For instance, purists might maintain that it is always the right time for peace, never time for war.  This chapter suggests otherwise.  There are unique times when either may be called for.  What time is it in your life?

By the same token, however, we should probably not put too much stress on Solomon's pre-Christian worldview.  After all, while Ecclesiastes is an honest book in regard to human questions, it is not necessarily a Holy Spirit-enlightened work.  After all, who would ever guess that you could find such a spiritually bleak section in the Bible as verses 18-21?  If these words were taken out of context, you might well regard them as advocating an agnostic view of the world!

"I said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show that they are but animals.  For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other.  They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity.  All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.  Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth?"

Surprisingly, this passage reveals that philosophical wondering about the immortality of the human soul was taking place even in ancient times - and that it was considered an open question.  But can we learn anything by the fact that this issue is even raised by human beings?  What would ever prompt the almost universal idea of eternal life without there being some reality behind it?  That, to me at least, is evidence that there are more things in heaven and earth than our dreamt of in our philosophy.