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December 27, 2022

Our text this week is familiar, but often misunderstood. Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 is well known, in part thanks to the ‘60s band The Byrds. “To everything (turn, turn, turn) / there is a season (turn, turn, turn) / and a time for every purpose under heaven.” It sounds almost like a “whatever will be, will be” kind of thought. Everything happens as it is supposed to happen when it happens. There is fatalism in these verses for some, predestination for others. But neither has to be found there.

The author of Ecclesiastes is pointing out a hard truth and then offering an invitation. The hard truth is that things happen. And we don’t know why things happen, good or bad. That’s the ignorance that the author refers to in verse 11. We don’t know why or whether God sends or doesn’t send stuff. It is futile to try and figure it out. Wisdom literature from the Bible is full of this futility. If you think you can figure out what God is doing in the stuff of this world, go spend some time with Job. That’s the hard truth.

Given that truth, what can we do? Give up? That’s one option. Just give up and do what you want. Many have taken that route. But that’s not the only option. Nor is it the one that the preacher advocates. “I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil” (Eccl 3:12-13). That’s the summation verse of this daunting text. So, what’s the invitation? To live!

We are called to live fully, to live aware, and to live alive. Jesus says in John that he has come that we might have life and have it abundantly. The invitation is to live every moment. We are to live the good moments in celebration and joy; the difficult ones, in prayer and in confidence that we are not alone, but alive in suffering as well as in prosperity!

​Your Brother in Christ, Rev. Ernest
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