ECCLESIASTES 7 – DEATH

“A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.”

(Ecclesiastes 7:1-4)

These words fly in the face of our modern secular culture. Ernest Becker, in his Pulitzer prize winning book in 1974, The Denial of Death tackles the problem of the lie that modern man refuses to acknowledge – his mortality. In countless memorial services many eulogies consist of attempts at humor in order to avoid mourning and facing up to one’s own inevitable demise. John Donne wrote,

No man is an island

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor on thine own

Or of thine friend’s were.

Each man’s death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

On the day of our birth we are expelled from the safety and security of our mother’s womb and take our first breath. As Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” (Job 1:21) We were not in control of our birth and we are not in control of our death. We have been given the gift of life, and we must render an account of it at our last day. While death is viewed as the last enemy it is conquered by Christ: “Death has been swallowed up in victory…He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:26,54-57). “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain…I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” (Phil. 1:21,23).

While we mourn the loss of loved ones we do not grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13) for nothing will separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom.8:39). As Henry Scott Holland wrote:

“Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.”

Also Charles Henry Brent:

“We seem to give them back to Thee, O God, who gavest them to us.. What Thou givest Thou takest not away, for what is thine is ours also if we are thine. And life is eternal and love is immortal, and death is only an horizon, and an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight. Lift us up, strong Son of God, that we may see further; cleanse our eyes that we may see more clearly.”