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;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, ESV)
Fall is a season that makes change beautiful. A feast of color, cool breezes, and crisp air. It’s the time for reflective strolls, bike rides, campfires, and quiet walks with those we love. As I begin the day, I allow myself to stop at a pastry shop. My heart swells with joy for all God does; he has created wonderful pleasures for the senses. This year, he has blessed us in many ways, including by providing an opportunity to study the book of Ecclesiastes with our 18-person church family.
Chapter three, especially, is a cherished treasure. The splendid poetry above summarizes well the circle of life. Each contrasting statement goes beyond sentiment to sober us up—a detox from the illusions that we are immortal or architects of our own fate. The main point of the passage? We can’t control the times. As David Gibson notes, “When we are dancing, most of us do not realize we are creating memories with people whom we will one day mourn.”[1] As a person of faith, I choose to embrace this reality fully, accepting the existence God has placed me in.
Interestingly, however, the poetry above that inspired the song “Turn, Turn, Turn,” by the Byrds could just as easily be read at the funeral of an atheist as a Christian. But that is only if the poetry of verses 1-8 is severed from the prose of 9-22. Taken in context, this “womb to the tomb” passage is infused with color only God could bring. The faith-saturated insights (9-22) bring peak season beauty to the poetic description of life on planet earth (1-8). The wisdom here is like leaves of deep orange, mixed with the reds and yellows, that stir in me a potpourri of appreciation.
Here are three fresh insights on chapter three from David Gibson’s outstanding, Living Life Backward:
- “He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to the end.” (3:11b, ESV) “God is not being unkind to us by not sharing… the point is that we are not built to understand the big picture, precisely because we live in time and God does not. If we could see the end from the beginning, and understand how a billion lives and a thousand generations and unspeakable sorrows and untold joys are all woven into a tapestry of perfect beauty, then we would be God.”[2]
- “Whatever God does endures forever.” (3:14, ESV) Yes, as Joni Mitchell sings, we have awareness from the eternity in our hearts that we are “captured on a carousel of time,” but it’s not a “Circle Game.” “Because God lives forever and I will not, I can experience the several different times of my life knowing that they are part of a bigger picture that I cannot see but which is visible to a good and wise God who sees the whole as beautiful.”[3]
- “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” (3:11a, ESV) This has been a precious truth to me for many years. Gibson, however, pointed out something I’d never seen before. In verse 15b “the Preacher” points out that the God who exists outside of time “seeks what has been driven away.” In other words, he can insert himself in any place. He is not trapped in the cyclical system as we are. That is why he can make things beautiful. Gibson explains, “Ecclesiastes makes the… astonishing claim that living well here and now in this world depends on time travel being possible—not to us, but to God…God will retrieve every single injustice, every single time, and every single activity…Knowing that God is outside of time and sees it all and will, in the end, bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked, stops me needing to be in control of everything that happens to me.”[4]
[1] David Gibson, Living Life Backward (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 60.
[2] Ibid., 57-58.
[3] Ibid., 57.
[4] Ibid., 58-60.