Ecclesiastes 3
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent 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 do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-11, NIV
(Image credit Bible.com)
The citation above is from the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes, or Koheleth in Hebrew – The Preacher in English. It is one of the best known and most often quoted of Bible passages, whether from the Old or New Testament. It is also one very appropriate to a season of reflection on the past and contemplation of the future, such as we find ourselves in as one calendar year draws to its close and a new one begins.
The Biblical tradition attributes Ecclesiastes to King Solomon of ancient Israel, who, many scholars believe, reigned from 970-931 BC. During his lifetime and for some time afterwards, he was reputed to be “the wisest man who ever lived”, although I’m sure that title can and should be disputed – particularly when Yeshua/Jesus, his direct descendant of almost a thousand years later, is taken into consideration. Even in ancient Israel’s off-shoot Kingdom of Judah, (ancient Israel divided into two separate Kingdoms after Solomon, the other being Israel to the north of Judah) there were some later kings who were much more conscientious about excluding idolatry, living by Torah, and reducing the oppression of the poor.
The exalted title of “wisest of men” for Solomon can also be disputed on other grounds, such as many of his own unwise actions. As the saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words.” Solomon talked and wrote a good game of reverence for and honouring of YHWH-Adonai, Israel’s (and the Universe’s) One True God, but he was not very long on the throne before he began to let expediency and politics contradict his solemn professions – actions such as killing many of of his brothers who might rival him and multiplying wives and concubines – many of whom were pagan idolaters whom he allowed to bring their cults into Israel with them. Rehashing the reign of this legendary ancient monarch, also said to have been the richest man of his time, is not the purpose of this post, but his example (much of it less than praiseworthy, and some bits of it commendable) is illustrative of our topic.
Lest we be too harsh on Solomon, although it might justifiably be said it would be difficult to be too harsh on him for all the evil he (re)introduced into Israel’s national life and the long-term consequences of his folly, we need to remember the words of his great-great-great-great, etc., grandson, Yeshua. At the opening of chapter 8 of the Gospel of John, his finger wrote in the sand as he listened to a group of men asking for his condemnation of a young woman caught in the act of adultery. He could have been writing my and your sins, just as he might very well (probably?) have been writing the sins of the accusers of the hapless woman brought before him by the Pharisees. He said to those self-righteous zealots of hyper-legalism, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” None did and they all melted away in shame and humiliation. On another occasion he told his hearers, “Before you try to take the speck out of your brother’s (or sister’s) eye, take the log out of your own eye.”
So here we are at the end of 2023, a very memorable year in recent world history. As we each consider what we have done and gone through in our personal lives, we cannot avoid considering what a momentous year it has been on the local, national, and international stage. We cannot avoid wondering what 2024 will bring in. And we may be excused if we feel some trepidation about some of the less than wonderful possibilities.
For example, we know that the currently raging wars that have attracted the lion’s share of global attention are unlikely to end any time soon. We know that the West, in particular, is in a deepening crisis of conscience and identity, of purpose and hope. The world socio-political-economic scene is in flux and transition. Many of the Western democracies face deep internal malaise, with the USA perhaps uppermost as it moves into a Presidential election year with the same divisions as were manifested in that of 2020 still in place and just as intractable as ever. The EU has become increasingly entrenched in and entranced by Wokism and so is abandoning its very foundations in liberal democratic freedoms. The same can be said in Canada.
The challenge to the US’s international stature is growing more marked. The Ukraine-Russia war has brought much out into the open and into critical focus. The UN has lost enormous credibility in the eyes of many in the West, and there is increasing rumbling about why the democracies should remain within it and continue to finance its increasingly dubious policies and priorities. As to Israel, the UN is among its most implacable adversaries, and the only reason for her to remain within it is to attempt to influence her increasingly vacillating friends and avoid being labelled a rogue pariah-state, as so many would like to treat it.
This alone raises very hard questions about the UN as a legitimate voice for peace, equity, inclusion, reason, and, especially, the true defence of human rights, which the UN so loves to accuse Israel and any Western state of violating under any pretext. While Israel is condemned as “genocidal” and a “war-crime state” by General Assembly resolutions and sententious Security Council motions, and 60% of all UN resolutions censuring any state are aimed at Israel on all kinds of pretexts, real genocides and ethnic and religious persecutions are left unaddressed, ignored, and never condemned lest some more politically potent entity, such as the Russian Federation, or the People’s Republic of China, or the Islamic Republic of Iran, or Pakistan, or India, etc., be offended. At the same time, profound questions are legitimately being asked among many Western analysts about the deep agenda of UN Agencies such as WHO and UNWRA (an agency specifically for Palestinians only) and UNICEF, among others. What are we to make of an agency such as the UN Human Rights Commission with Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, or Russia in the chair? Or a Chinese bureaucrat directing WHO when there are many deeply disturbing questions about the role and deceit of China in COVID?
Solomon’s powerful words quoted above remind us that in some times, some days, some periods in our lives, it is right to grieve, or, conversely, to rejoice. Some days and times, we need to tear down, root out, throw out, dispose of things that have served their purpose and, when hung onto past that purpose and appropriate time, which are dragging us into a pit of depression, of suffering we can avoid, or at least which we can much alleviate by cutting it off now rather than later when it may indeed drag us over the edge.
This is true for us individually; it is also true for families, for societies, for nations, and even for whole civilizations. Some relationships may become so toxic that, as grievous as it may be to make the break, the break must be made if we are to survive, if we are to remain sane and have any hope of retaining or recovering our health.
Beyond the context in which we live as individuals, huge questions and decisions are looming: issues such as national identity, national integrity, the continuation of long-held policies which have become twisted and distorted and so imbalanced as to raise the very question of retaining them any more. Issues that question our very existence as a civilization must be faced. Issues about whether we really have any legitimacy under the accusations of radical ideologies declaring that all our heritage and core traditions must be rejected and replaced with a perspective that is diametrically opposed to everything the West is and has been. And yet there is nothing but hatred and destruction set before us to replace all that has come down to us.
Is the past all guilt and shame? Is our heritage really all oppression and exploitation, racism and genocide? Is what was before the “colonizers” came all harmony and unity, beauty and innocence? Or are we being completely bamboozled and brow-beaten by barbarians playing a Pied-Piper-Tune which is meant to lull everyone into oblivion about what will really come next if we succumb to the hypnotism of our educational and media elites and their ideological propaganda machine? Are we and our ancestors really just the most terrible people that ever walked the planet because they/we dare(d) to believe in personal responsibility and spreading their/our convictions about justice and right and duty and responsibility in order to try to improve the world?
We know they were not saints. Neither are we. Neither are the Woke ideologues. Underneath, the propagators of the New Left Ultra version of the past and future are more like Stalin, Mao, and other sadistic nihilists than the saints of anti-oppression which they want to virtue-posture themselves as. Their solution is poly-Marxism fuelled by rage and a cry to rip everything down with no vision but power for themselves as the arbiters of truth. It is an old siren-song under a revised mask of death.
Our forebears were no better or worse than anyone alive now. In many cases they were actually much better than the hate-spewing ideologues masquerading as agents of liberation. History contradicts this whole farrago characterization of our forebears. Today’s entrenched version of truth emanating from academia and Leftist agencies offers spiritual bankruptcy based entirely on personal choice and preference with no higher values or morality than what you want now. Our forebears’ goals and ideals told them that we cannot just live for ourselves. The core conviction behind them was that all are made in God’s image, as are we, and therefore each one is worthy of the same respect and esteem as anyone else. This remained true regardless of how they may have failed to live by it. It provided a basis for real hope of change and reform rather than rage-filled nihilism.
The on-stage chorus speaking today makes everything about victimhood and power. There is no higher value. Thus, everything is about who gets power, who can hold onto it, and, by virtue of having the power, who can manipulate and control the rest. Victimhood is universal; thus no one is ultimately responsible.
Back to Solomon. It is no longer a time to be silent. It is a time to speak up loud and clear. It is time to take a stand, not meekly roll over as if we have no responsibility except to meekly whimper, “Mea culpa. What penance must I do?” For the current brand of cultural and social gate-keepers, no penance will ever be enough.
It is a time for mourning and repentance, but remembering what Solomon’s much wiser and greater distant great- grandson said: “Blessed are those who mourn, for you shall be comforted” and “Turn around and trust the Good News!” that there is a Creator who loves you and is calling us into healing and reconciliation with Himself, with our fellow humans, and with the creation He has gifted us with.
Jesus was speaking of mourning over sin and the plight of the world, not just our personal griefs, into which he will also bring his comfort. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [justice from God’s perspective], for you shall be satisfied.” God is not oblivious to our situation, but our desires must align to His, not just to our preferred political agenda and personal wants. For God, the plight of the voiceless, the homeless, the oppressed, the persecuted, the true victims of power run amok, is always topmost – far above those defining these categories to suit a personal grudge or self-inflicted victimhood.
I invite readers to take Solomon’s wonderful poem to heart and meditate upon it as we head into 2024.
Where do you find yourself in his reflection? Upon which side of each pairing? Then realize that you need not stay there. The other side will break through. Even if your time to die comes this year, there are great and wonderful promises of a brilliant future when we meet our Maker face-to-face. That future opens when we turn to the final Mediator between YHWH, the Creator, and humankind, YHWH come as one of us – Yeshua. Jesus spoke of himself as one far greater than Solomon. He told his hearers one day: “Not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as one of these [the beautiful flowers in the fields around them at that time and place], and yet something [Himself] much greater than Solomon is here with you right now.”
And so He is even now, this day, with all the dark clouds that seem looming on 2024’s horizon. May you find His peace and shalom as you live these days.
World.V.You 