“Life and Life Abundant" Ecclesiastes 1:1-11; 3:1-17, Mark 8:35-37

  “For everything there is a season.” Words that we freely quote from Ecclesiastes when we are grieving. Or perhaps, when we are accompanying someone else grieving. We want them to be words of comfort. This is just the season that you find yourself in right now. You won’t feel like this forever. 

But I wonder if that is the context that Solomon, this man of great wisdom, meant these words to be relegated to. Now don’t understand me. They are beautiful words and amongst my favorite to preach at funerals. But I wonder if they also open up more to us. If they can also be a blessing in other seasons of life. 

As I worked on this sermon, I was also knee deep in a final paper that is the cultimation of my studies at Fordham. The topic of that paper - how we can accompany people in the midst of grief. Some of you know that grief is something that has deeply touched my life over the last several years. I lost my grandfather, one my absolutely favorite people in the world, to COVID in 2021. One of my deep saddnesses is that you did not get a chance to meet him here at Juniata, because it was’t uncommon for him to just show up some, if not most Sundays, to spend time with me and get to know my congregations on Sunday morning. 

Losing my grandpa was not the first loss in my life, but it was perhaps one that hit me the hardest. Because of its sudden nature. Because of the deep love that I have for him. And because people who I had been walking with for years as their pastor struggled to come up with the words to say against the chasm of my grief. I don’t fault them - they were trying - but hearing “at least he’s not suffering anymore” and “he’s in a better place” when just two weeks prior he was happily working 60 plus hours a week, didn’t offer me comfort or companionship in my grief. 

But something that has come out of all that situation is a firmer resolve to be with people in grief. It’s what lead me to volunteer with hospice and to help families create legacy projects to remember their loved ones. Because I want to share this message that we grieve because of our capacity to love and to live. 

Which I wonder if was on Solomon’s heart as he penned these words of wisdom. The first words put on the page is that everything in just a vanity. We do the same things day in and day out and nothing seems to change. We never seem to get ahead. Not the words that we expect from Solomon. Certainly nothing like what we heard just two weeks ago from Proverbs. Which leads me to ask - why? Why would Solomon write something like this?

When held with the beauty of the words we remember from Ecclesiastes I wonder if he was in the midst of grief. Have you been there, friends? Where nothing seems to make sense? Where you yearn for the world to be different and that isn’t what you are seeing yet? 

But for Solomon this wasn’t the end. Because just a few lines later he comes to the conclusion that while life may seem to be a struggle, it isn’t everything. It isn’t the totality of our reality. Because while this time may be difficult, there will also be times of joy. And dancing. And celebration. 

Now notice what Solomon does not say. He does not demand that people transition from one season to another on his timing. He does not ask for performative joy to make other people comfortable. He simply acknowledge that for every season there is another season to come. 

And friends, for me that is hope.

Hope the world and our work in it isn’t in vain. Hope that grief will not last forever. Hope that tomorrow is coming, even if we do not know what tomorrow holds. 

This doesn’t mean that we “get over” our grief. But it does mean that it changes over time. One of the pictures that I find meaning in to illustrate grief is that of a ball inside of a series of container. In the first container the ball takes up almost all of the space. Over a series of images, the ball itself doesn’t change, but the container around it becomes bigger and bigger, making its presence feel different. 

The container of the season changes. That is hope. 

Jesus continues this theme of vanities and the seasons of life when he stated these words that we often proclaim at funerals - that those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for his sake will save it. What is Jesus trying to say? That life has a deeper, richer meaning then we may even be able to recognize. 

We think that applies to those who are martyred for the faith - and that is true, but friends it is so much more than that. Think of the familiar words to the hymn “I Surrender All”, “All to Jesus, I surrender. All to him I freely give.” When we freely give all we have and all we are to Christ for the sake of the Kingdom, that is an act of laying our lives aside for the sake of the Gospel. Its handing our lives over to God and saying, not my will, but thine will be done. May I be lifted high for thee, or laid aside for thee - in the words of the Covenant Prayer written by John Wesley. The problem comes when we still try to hold tightly on to our lives. To our idea of how our lives should be that we become blindsided by the seasons, and thus lose sight of the hope. 

Sometimes I like to Zoom out in scripture and see how it fits into the larger context. Like how Ecclesiastes 1 and Ecclesiastes 3 may be related. And when I zoom out with the Gospel of Mark and look at the entire 8th chapter - I see the disciples living into a season that doesn’t make sense to them. Jesus feeds the 4,000. The pharisees test Jesus. Jesus heals the blind man at Bethsaida. Peter declaring that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus telling his disciples that he is going to die. And then this powerful moment of transfiguration. 

Now we don’t know exactly how many days all of those things occurred over, but I would imagine that the disciples felt that their season was a whirlwind. Or a roller coaster. But that season, it was only temporary - at least in that day. Because it isn’t too much later in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus lays down his life and is raised from the dead, ushering in a whole new season that he was trying to talk about in Mark 8.

Friends, life is messy. But if that is where you find yourself today - know that the mess is temporary. Life is full of grief and dancing, shouts of joy and tears of pain. What makes it life is all of those pieces coming together. But what brings hope into all of it, is handing our life - all of it - into the hands of Jesus. Being honest that we don’t always like it or understand, but trusting that Jesus is the Lord of life and redemption. And that more is to come - in and through him. Amen.