For everything there is a season, and a time  for  every  matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

            With these words the author of Ecclesiastes begins one of the famous passages of scripture: for everything there is a season. We affirm the eternal truth of these words.  But this day we also REJECT THEM.  For who believes there is EVER a season for a man’s untimely death?

            And so we are gathered this morning in shock, as much as in sorrow. Art’s death was totally UNEXPECTED.  All sorts of feelings and thoughts are churning within us.  Painful grief.  Self‑doubt. Confusion.  Fear.  Doubt. Even anger.  The thought that, “if it could happen to Art, it could happen to me.”

            If we were not together now, the moment could not be endured. For this is a time for weeping and mourning and embracing.  So, it is good that we are here.  Thankfully, we ARE here; with each other to lean on, and the Word of God to comfort us, to guide us, and to interpret this moment for us.

            And what does Scripture say to us on such a day?

            Ecclesiastes is at the same time a good writer for the day and a poor choice.  Ecclesiastes speaks to us and to our emotions.  That is good.  But Ecclesiastes is also the greatest cynic of the whole Bible – he looks around and says, “What is life all about anyway?  Is life nothing more than being born, suffering, and dying?”

            Ecclesiastes is a cynic. But he is a cynic trying to find faith. Or maybe Ecclesiastes is a person of faith simply trying to make sense of a chaotic world.  Trying to make sense out of the senseless.  Trying to find meaning where none seems to be available.

            And it is out of Ecclesiastes’ desperate view of life that we find words that work for us today.  Not necessarily satisfying words, but maybe helpful words. 

            We will never find a satisfying answer to our questions about why a man in the prime of his life dies.  But in Ecclesiastes we do find a response to our feelings and our loss this day.  And Ecclesiastes’ response – not his answer, but his response is this:

            Friends:  enjoy life, for you do not know how long your life may be.  Enjoy life, for life is good!  Life is good because God is good, and God is the source of all life.  So he writes, “Eat your bread with enjoyment and drink your wine with a merry heart; enjoy life with your spouse. If you are given children, be grateful for that blessing.  Enjoy life.  For it is God’s gift to you.”

            And – and - Ecclesiastes writes, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might.”  The good life, the fulfilled life, the best life, comes not simply through enjoying life’s pleasures.  The best life also comes through honest and productive labor.  Through self-expression.  Creativity.  Service with and for your neighbors.

            That is Ecclesiastes’ response to the toil and tragedy of life.  A good response.  One that is complemented, that is completed, by the vision of the Psalmist.

            The Psalmist adds, not all of life will be good pleasure. You will not always be filled. You will walk through the valley of the shadow of death.  But there is nothing to fear.  For the God of life and of death, the Lord God, is with you and will be with you.  Always.

            Now, God does not shield us from danger, nor insulate us from loss or pain or suffering or grief or death.  Nor does God provide us with the wisdom to answer all of life’s unanswerable questions.  But God is with us through it all, even in our pain and loss. Especially in our pain and loss.

            Rabbi Harold Kushner, in a sequel to his well-known book, When bad things happen to good people, comments on the 23rd Psalm this way:

            The poet Kahlil Gibran writes of people who “stand with their backs to the sun, and what is the sun to them

but the caster of shadows?”  I want to help them attain the wisdom of the author of Psalm 23, that God will not bring back your loved one, but God can do the next best thing.  God can take you by the hand and guide you through the valley of the shadow of death until you come out again into the sunlight on the other side.  God can bring you the understanding that loss is painful only because life is good and life is precious. The death of a human being is tragic whereas the death of a barnyard animal is not, precisely because human life has meaning. And human life has meaning not in economic terms, not in intellectual terms, but only in religious terms.  (Who needs God, pp 175-176)

In Jesus we have a personal and human revelation of this God who is with us always.  God taking part in

human life “destroys the source of our fears and liberates us so that we might live in faith and with hope.”  Into the darkness of this day, the brilliant light of the Christ who has come shines over us, illuminating our path.  For the one who has come and lived and taught and died has been raised for us.  And because CHRIST has come, WE can go on.  Because Christ has come, we will go on. (cf Tillich, “The destruction of death” in Shaking the Foundations)

            Friends:  place all your burdens on the shoulders of the God who would lift you up like a loving father. Receiving the comforting presence of God’s Spirit.  Cement your lives and hopes and fears in the Christ whose body is the church.  Embrace the God who is ready and eager to be with you in all of the seasons of your life. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present not things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of  God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  AMEN.

R. Charles Grant

Bon Air Presbyterian Church

Richmond, Virginia

February 2, 2008