For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
9 What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live;13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. 14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.
The first 8 verses of chapter 3 might be the most well known in all of Ecclesiastes, although some of us might have thought it came from the 1960’s pop song by The Byrds who used these verses almost verbatim to collect a number one hit song.
You no doubt noticed that the couplets are found in pairs, the first and the second having a similar theme. There are fourteen lines all told, so seven pairs; seven, as you remember, is the number of completeness in the Bible. In other words, we have here a poetic statement about life in all of its varied states being described.
In each case the terms used amount to polar opposites. All the circumstances of life are described by reference to the polarities, the contrasts, the opposite conditions or states or actions lying at each end of a particular continuum of human experience. What we are being given, then, is a comprehensive portrait of life “under the sun.” (R. Rayburn)
God has a purpose in everything, that is clear so we read of this interweaving of the happy and the sad, the trial and the blessing and as we read in 7:14, God has made the one as well as the other. In verse 4 we find contrasting emotions as well, so not just events. All events, every feeling, all things under the gaze and direction of our God…even something as simple as a time to tear and a time to sew, one commentator put it this way:
Kids need to run and play even if that means that mothers may need to sew from time to time. A mother who won’t repair clothes has kids who can’t play! And a child who is afraid of a scraped knee will never have the fun of playing tag!
I was reading some time ago something regarding Holy Week that has stayed with me. What made an impact is to consider that Jesus himself had all of these kinds of days that Ecclesiastes is describing to us. For Jesus there was a time to die and a time to rise again. There was a time for suffering and death and a time for victory over death.
The public ministry of the Lord illustrates all kinds of wonder and joy and astonishment due to his healings and teaching and miracles for all the world to see. The Passion week, well that was something altogether different, as was that first Easter Sunday. These events were very different times producing very different states of mind in the disciples. But each had to have its own day and each had to have its own experience and the disciples had to feel the weight of each one of them for those men to be who the Lord needed them to be.
Easter wouldn’t be Easter without Good Friday. You cannot remove a single one of these times or matters without ruining the whole. Listen to this author’s musing:
“Think, of what is called Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter. The Son of God had just been put to death for sin and had been buried. He was dead and so far as the disciples were concerned he was gone. For the disciples this, of course, was a crushing blow, the ruin of all their hopes. And the next day dawned to that same desolation.”
We can relate to this. Many have had something happen, something horrible and the next morning you woke up with the overwhelming sense that it was NOT a dream, that it was real and you are going to have to figure out some way to get through it.
The disciples were afraid. It was no secret that they were Jesus’ followers and that the Lord’s enemies had triumphed over him. Were they next? They huddled together out of sight, sharing their grief and their fears and wondering aloud what to do next.
Knowing those men, it would not surprise us if a sharp word or two were exchanged as one suggested this course of action and another poured scorn on his idea. No word came from heaven; there were no miracles on Saturday to cheer them or to replenish their faith. There was nothing but silence! They were, or so it seemed, left to themselves and to their own devices after three years of relying on Jesus for the direction of their lives.
Can anyone deny that our lives often seem like that? We find ourselves discouraged, afraid, fighting unsuccessfully against a creeping hopelessness, and all the while we seem to be getting nothing from the Lord. We may know that the Lord died for us yesterday, but what of today? We trust – though sometimes faintly – that there will be miracles for us tomorrow, but what of today? Where is the Lord today?
Ecclesiastes is a lengthy meditation on such “Saturdays” in our lives. But, and this is key, God’s sovereignty and our trust of Him is not just to be seen on those Saturdays, which it must; but, there are plenty of Easter Sundays in our lives as well. It is the presence in our lives of both the cross and the empty tomb that we have set before us. Such is our life in the world as the children of God.
Our text sets for us all the different realities of life in this world. The problem for us is that we can’t see ahead of time either that one such time or another is about to come upon us or how the Lord is going to make use of our experiences in the total story of our lives. As we said before, the great limitation of human life is the very limited knowledge we have and must have while we live “under the sun.” We don’t know what things mean. We don’t know how things are going to turn out. For us it seems, as we read in 9:11-12:
“Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.”
We have said that the perspective of this author is indicated by his use more than thirty times in the book of the phrase “under the sun.” From the vantage point of this world and our knowledge, life just doesn’t’ explain itself like we might want it to. But another clue to the book’s meaning is the author’s use of the verb םצא , masah, “to find” or “find out.” Dr. Max Rogland draws our attention to that in his comments. Listen to Ecclesiastes:
“[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” [3:11]
“Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things – which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found.” [7:27-28]
“…then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much many may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.” [8:16-17]
We do not understand what is happening in the world or in our lives; and we cannot no matter how hard we try. So, where does our hope come from? Why are we not lost in despair? Well, because of the very doctrine that many do not care for…the truth that God is Sovereign…and for those who truly know the Lord and want with all our hearts to trust Him…this truth is our life. God, our FATHER is sovereign over all. I don’t have to understand how He is this or does this. I don’t have to be able to put all the pieces together, as long as I am in relationship with Him who not only DOES understand it, but in what is the mystery of mysteries, has also ordered all things to come to pass exactly as they have and exactly as they will.
There is simply no point in spending our lives protesting what we cannot understand, cannot change, or being embittered by disappointment and the punishing side of our broken world…rather we rejoice, we make much of the blessings of the good, even when, and it is when not if, even when, the blessings are mixed with trouble and sorrow. We live in a fallen world and yet our God has inserted Himself into it that there might be joy, happiness and anticipation of what He has promised. Life can be punishing, but where He is…there is always hope.
Prayer: Father, there is much I do not understand and I confess there is much in my life that I wish were not so. Help me to put a hand over my mouth, to quiet my soul and to look to You. Help me to find peace, to rest, not because I understand everything but because You are with me and have promised to use all circumstances in my life to make me one in whom Your glory is seen. Father, help me to want what I should want and to find joy in the light of Your presence, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Song: Our Great God
Attachments area