LEST WE FORGET TO REMEMBER

By: Travis W. Lewis

February 19, 2024

Among the most profound counsel ever offered to future generations was posted by King Solomon in the poetic book of Ecclesiastes. By the time he concludes his sermons in what we identify as chapter 12, the wise preacher has almost surely grown old. Though his penitence is obvious, he is unable to reclaim his own years of folly, so his attention turns to the young – those who tend to see old age as an era in the distant future that can be dealt with at the time. Yet, Solomon’s admonition is to begin preparing to be old while still young – to begin early to form a view of what life is meant to be and of the end that will inevitably present itself to all who live to be old.

Verse 1: Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, “I have no pleasure in them;…”

The king’s lecture begins with an urgency to bring the Creator into sharp focus early on. Life simply will not make sense without understanding our Creator’s desire to be our guide toward the end that we pursue. In youth, vibrancy and excitement usually appear naturally. Yet, many are the mischiefs spawned by the vanity of the creature. Choices appear limitless. Ample energy renews daily. Meeting interesting new people and situations is thrilling. And as shackles of discipline that formerly bound the adolescent are shed, he or she is repeatedly assured that “The sky is the limit.”, and “You can be whatever you want to be.” But be not overly delighted by such vanity. After all, though the proverbial sky appears limitless, be assured that constraints will appear, and, the king alludes, “do you really want to arrive as an old man or woman at the destination of which you dreamed as a shortsighted youth?” The bright-eyed young appear to stand on a threshold of being able to carve his or her own legacy, and such a prospect excites. Yet, the preacher sounds an alert to being flattered by such expectations. Should the future hold no limitations, other than laws written by society or by one’s own ability and skill? Does he or she actually want the blissful dreams of youth to become reality, or, even if the goals appear honorable, do they really deliver what the Creator intended by handing over the resources available to youth?

Not only are these choice days, but they are also days of choosing. Here is the crux of the king’s caution. Regardless of the point in life where time finds us, all opportunities that are offered to us, all material wealth which may bear our names, all the knowledge which we may have been privileged to absorb, all the experiences through which we have lived and learned, and even physical life itself is ultimately owned and can be controlled and reclaimed at the will of this Creator to which Solomon refers. And, even in our finest hour, we are only stewards who will eventually stand to account for all that was once left in our charge.

The king’s caution is that the young man or woman will gradually, though surely, change as they reach for the proverbial sky and pursue the grand scheme of which they dream. So, the admonition of the preacher is to not wait to leave the pleasures of sin until those pleasures have departed and are gone. Yet the Creator remains the same; and with every season of excitement and vibrancy, a different season draws nearer when life becomes less exciting and less vibrant as they must acknowledge that life just isn’t as stimulating as it once was. Love of mirth and the draw of sensual pleasures are diseases of youth. Allowed to linger, they bring increasing agony and become more difficult to cure. And, surely without that sense of one’s Creator and our march toward a time when we give final account to Him, one can be assured of a future discovery that the passing pleasures of youth were deceptive and yielded no solid satisfaction or permanent relief to the soul.

Verse 2: (Continuance of Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth)… while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain…

In youth, one gains stimulus by the beautiful sunlight as it governs the day and the gorgeous moon and starlit sky array the night, and all of life seems well; and, even when storm clouds gather and spill their rain, or when warm winds switch direction and pour out their frigid breath of cold, soon the clouds drift away, and clear skies bring good times again. Yet, a time will come when the proverbial clouds and winds of life that cast fear and dread will not clear on the morrow, but instead, the morning brings yet more darkness and apprehension.

Verse 3: In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened…

With the relentless advance of time, commands crafted within the watchtower of the head and transmitted to the body, tend to receive less response than of younger years. Having heretofore provided physical defense for the body and livelihood for self and family, the hands, arms, shoulders, and legs weaken, and their steadiness and dexterity give way to weakness and trembling. Though debility may at first appear in a subtle degree recognized only in the privacy of one’s own being, its presence is one of continually appearing proofs that the anchor leg of life’s race has begun. At some point in the aging sequence, gravity’s law draws frontal body weight forward and downward; back and shoulder muscles want to relax, thus requiring a conscious effort to maintain the profile of formerly squared shoulders and vertical body which in time past served so very well. Teeth become more difficult to retain and maintain, which hampers preparation of nourishment for the digestion process, all which cascades into other discomforts and difficulties. Concurrent to the onslaught of other physical frailties, eyesight starts to fade. The luster of the day’s sunshine, the sparkle of the stars and the soft glow of the night moon slowly dim with age – to a greater degree and pace for some than for others; yet time is the inevitable victor.

Verse 4: …And the doors shall be shut in the streets when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low…

As the wheels of business begin their grind to a halt near day’s end and one’s reserve of energy is near exhaustion, primary thought is to shut out the world and assume a state of calm and stillness as both mental and physical systems call for rest and rejuvenation. Yet, the relaxation period is short-lived, and long before the outside world begins to crank up its new day as the bird detects first light, the once young is awake, ready to face the rigors of a new day, albeit with knowledge that its demands will tax the refill of energy received during the short rest of the night.

The ability to produce sounds that once brought mirth to singing eventually loses both control and volume; and the ear, which once relished its sound, fails as the miracles of the voice and the ecstasy produced by its melodies progressively dim.

Verse 5: And when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets…..

A failing sense of balance and depth perception brings a fear of heights, and, possibly beginning in a subconscious, though no less real form, declining strength and agility produce new fears and senses of vulnerability which were not realized in youth.

According to Nebraska’s Entomology Science Literacy and Outreach, the average grasshopper weighs approximately one one-hundredth of one ounce, a weight almost undetectable by human sense. Solomon’s metaphor, the grasshopper shall be a burden, seems to teach that, if life continues long enough, the lightest of chores become dreaded tasks.

All the while, former excitement and optimism of a new day tend to fade and seldom reappear. Hair loses its shade and slowly assumes the whiteness of the sweet-almond tree blossom.

With awareness that many, if not most, systems of both body and mind are gradually shutting down, former desires to accept new challenges and to set new goals start to collapse. Solomon puts it in simple terms – desire fails.

Verse 6: … Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.

Hair which was once thick and plentiful begins to loosen and fall off. The golden bowl that was once filled with memories begins to crack. At first the fissure may be evident much in the privacy of one’s own thoughts, but the slow seepage of memories into oblivion progressively manifests itself.

Ability to contain contents of the bladder fails, only to lose control of its discharge at a time and place, and to an extent, which is often fraught with embarrassment. Or, if loss of bladder control is not a problem, even more discomfiting is a growing inability to urinate at all. In other words, the “wheel at the cistern…” used to fetch water at a desired time is broken, which produces pain and, if unresolved, eventual disease.

Verse 7: Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Death of a human differs from the death of any other creature. No other creature has the capacity to sorrow at the loss of a loved one to the extent of the human creature. Maybe it’s due to us being the lone part of creation that has the capacity for love resembling that of our Creator toward us, along with that same capacity to love one another. This is especially true for those alongside whom we have walked through life. Relatively of late, we have devised new terms that describe a new-found manner to handle the death of loved ones. Instead of having a “funeral,” we conduct a “celebration of life”, where more prominently heard are sounds of chuckling than of sorrow. True, we have reason to treasure and be happy for the testimony of the departed, especially when it was proven by a life well-lived. But sorrow and tears are a tribute to the dead and not to the mourner’s lack of emotional maturity. For if we eliminate or seek to hide from view the effects of pain in loss of a treasure, how can we appreciate that which we still possess?

In life, we are a ray of Heaven united with a lump of earth. In death, each one is separated from the other and placed in an eternal home to reside forever. The body returns to the earth whence it came and eventually resumes its original form with the earth. The soul, or the spirit born within at the new birth, is at last reclaimed by God who gave it. Unredeemed, it is lodged with the eternally imprisoned spirits, mentioned in 1 Peter 3:19.

Yet, as sobering as the picture is of what Solomon describes as old age, there is sure hope that can be harbored within the human breast at whatever stage life finds us. Best advice is still found in verse 1: Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. The earlier we find valid reason to look forward to eternity, the more beautiful can be our hope as we near the end.

The wise king’s worldview is packaged in verse 13-14: Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. No honest, objective mind can rationalize that all our good thoughts and deeds can ever compensate for the many outcroppings of the evil nature with which we are all born. The only good work that can tip the balance on that day of judgment is to have, at some point in life, repented of our bent to sin, and sensing our helplessness, trusted in the atonement made by Jesus over two-thousand years ago. Encapsulating how such a radical change in eternal destiny can occur, he summarized it all in Luke 13:3-5, twice stating: I tell you, Nay: but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Only then can we endure the rigors of life and the “evil days” just described with assurance of an eventual and eternal home as we leave all this behind forever and step inside the gates of Heaven! All because we did not “forget to remember.” Ω TL ©2023