ACTING BEFORE THE GOLDEN BOWL IS BROKEN

ACTING BEFORE THE GOLDEN BOWL IS BROKEN

Ecclesiastes [GW] 12:1-14 Remember your Creator when you are young, before the days of trouble come and the years catch up with you. They will make you say, "I have found no pleasure in them." Remember your Creator before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars turn dark, and the clouds come back with rain. Remember your Creator when those who guard the house tremble, strong men are stooped over, the women at the mill stop grinding because there are so few of them, and those who look out of the windows see a dim light. Remember your Creator when the doors to the street are closed, the sound of the mill is muffled, you are startled at the sound of a bird, and those who sing songs become quiet. Remember your Creator when someone is afraid of heights and of dangers along the road, the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and the caper bush has no fruit. Mortals go to their eternal rest, and mourners go out in the streets. Remember your Creator before the silver cord is snapped, the golden bowl is broken, the pitcher is smashed near the spring, and the water wheel is broken at the cistern. Then the dust of mortals goes back to the ground as it was before, and the breath of life goes back to God who gave it. "Absolutely pointless!" says the spokesman. "Everything is pointless!" Besides being wise, the spokesman also taught the people what he knew. He very carefully thought about it, studied it, and arranged it in many proverbs. The spokesman tried to find just the right words. He wrote the words of truth very carefully. Words from wise people are like spurs. Their collected sayings are like nails that have been driven in firmly. They come from one shepherd. Be warned, my children, against anything more than these. People never stop writing books. Too much studying will wear out your body. After having heard it all, this is the conclusion: Fear God, and keep his commands, because this applies to everyone. God will certainly judge everything that is done. This includes every secret thing, whether it is good or bad.

  Life includes problems, some writ in our past, presently active, others yet to come. Was this not so for God Incarnate, the recently celebrated babe that became the cruelly Crucified Savior? Should we expect a different Gethsemane that He?

  Family life involves discomforting diverse point-of-view when it comes to solving problems. And it is very easy to fall prey to letting emotions dominate and thereby subjectively react in kind or just as bad – to shut eyes and ears, close mind, harden heart, and/or be totally non-confrontational. Emotional stress should not, must not dominate our thinking, for as followers of Christ ours is the utmost purpose. We are called to serve Him all our days in all our ways, a task that cannot be accomplished apart from combined vertical and horizontal love: “… when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." “ (ESV Mt.22:34-40)

  The Apostle Paul’s life embodied this point well; History as a destroyer. He afterward often dealt with destroyers within families and churches. His life involved much persecution ending with death by execution. Peopled hues on his canvas, but by submissive determination none framed his life picture.

  I pray this be so in my life and yours in subjection to our Lord . . . never forgetting that once the silver cord snaps, the golden bowl breaks, the old pitcher is shattered before the fountain of youth, our spokes support no longer . . . the opportunity for godly resolution to obtain things of everlasting value will cease. 

EBB4   Wednesday, April 11, 2018