The End of the Matter (Ecclesiastes 12:9-14)

For months now we’ve been looking at one of the most interesting books ever written. I mentioned last week what Bono of U2 thinks of this book:

Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books. It’s about a character who wants to find out why he’s alive, why he was created. He tries knowledge. He tries wealth. He tries experience. He tries everything.

He is not alone in his admiration for this book. Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, called Ecclesiastes “the truest of all books.” Thomas Wolfe described it as “the highest flower of poetry, eloquence and truth” and “the greatest single piece of writing I have known.” If you’ve been here these past few months, I hope you’ve had glimpses of why this is such an important book.

But we need to be honest. It’s not an easy book. It seems depressing at times. Other times it’s peppy. There’s lots of controversy about how to interpret the book and how it’s written. One of the reasons I wanted to tackle Ecclesiastes is because it has a lot to say to us. But one of the reasons I wanted to tackle this book is because I’ve preached through it before, and I wasn’t happy. I wanted to do better. I wanted to really understand the message of this book and what it means for us today.

So this morning we come to the end. And as we get to the end, a couple of things are going to happen. First: we’re going to see why we need to listen to Ecclesiastes; why we shouldn’t skip over this book. Second: we’re going to see the core message of this book, and how our lives should change as a result.

First: why should we pay attention to this book?

As we get to the end of chapter 12, the tone shifts. It looks like verses 9 to the end are written by an editor, or by the Teacher himself as he steps out of his role and reflects on what he’s doing. At first glance it looks a little self-congratulatory, but it really isn’t. Verses 9 to 12 give us insight into what the author has been doing in this book and how we should interpret it.

Verses 9 to 12 say:

Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.

The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

Here’s why we need to pay attention to this book. The comments here put the entire book into perspective and help us understand what the Teacher has been trying to do. We’re told that this book has five qualities that make it important for us to consider.

It’s written with logical clarity. The Teacher, we read, considered all the wise sayings that he had heard with great care. He weighed them and considered which ones were useful and important. Not only that, but he then arranged them in this book logically. This book hasn’t been thrown together at random, but carefully constructed as a piece of literature. This is a book that is clear, logical, and carefully arranged.

It’s also written with literary artistry. It’s not just logical; its put together with artistry. As someone’s put it, whether you agree with the Teacher’s message or not, nobody criticizes his writing style. This guy knows how to write. It’s a work of literary beauty. It’s designed to “please the ear, inspire the imagination, fascinate the mind, and delight the soul” (Phil Ryken).

So it’s written with logical clarity and literary artistry; it’s also written in alignment with reality. Verse 10 says “he wrote words of truth.” You’ll have noticed that the Teacher doesn’t sugarcoat things. Some of us like to be a little careful in how we say things. I heard of a Christian leader who fired someone. He did it so nicely that the guy showed up for work the next day. He fired the guy so gently that the guy didn’t even know that he had been fired. The Teacher doesn’t do this. He tells it like it is. We can always count on the Teacher to tell us the truth.

It’s also written with a practical purpose. Verse 11 says they’re like goads, like firmly fixed nails. Goads are one of the tools that shepherds use to drive oxen down a road. A goad is a long, pointed stick used to prod and poke oxen so that they go in the right direction. I think we can all agree that Ecclesiastes has somewhat of a poky feel to it. It certainly feels like a long pointed stick poking us in places we’d rather not be poked, but we need it. If we pay attention to this book, it will save us from going down some roads we may take if there wasn’t somebody standing there with a sharp stick telling us not to go that way.

Ultimately one of the most important reasons we need to pay attention to this book is because it’s given to us by one Shepherd, according to verse 11. It’s the first time that the word shepherd has been used in this book. It could be a reference to the Teacher who wrote this book. But it’s not usually used this way. It’s most often used of God in Scripture. The only other times the term “one shepherd” is used in the Old Testament, it refers to the promised descendent of David who will come one day. It seems likely that the “shepherd” mentioned here is none other than God himself, which is why it’s capitalized in most versions. This means that Ecclesiastes are not just the musings of some skeptical philosopher; they’re part of God’s revelation to us. As our Shepherd, God uses this book to prod us in the right direction with our lives.

This is why verse 12 says:

My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of books come out. You can’t keep up. You can’t even try. I’m an avid reader, but even the really committed readers I know only read about 100 books a year. That means they’re reading only a fraction of a percent of what comes out. You can’t even keep up with the book reviews!

So how do you keep up? Verse 12 tells us we don’t have to. There’s room for other books, but Ecclesiastes warns us to be careful. Beware of going beyond the “collected sayings” that God has provided. What God has revealed in his Word is enough. There is no need to go beyond what he’s provided. By far the most important book we have is the Bible, including the book of Ecclesiastes. We need to pay attention to this book more than all the others.

That’s why this book is so important. This book has logical clarity. It has literary artistry. It’s aligned with reality. It’s practical and it can prod us in the right direction. It’s God-breathed Scripture. We need to pay attention to this book. That’s the first thing that this passage tells us.

Secondly, we discover the core message of the book.

In case you’re confused about what the Teacher’s been saying - and then a summary of the conclusions of the book.

Let me briefly summarize what the book has said. His basic message has been about meaninglessness. He keeps saying things like:

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
(Ecclesiastes 1:2)

The word vain or vanity or meaningless, depending on your transition, appears some 35 times in this book. It doesn’t mean that everything is worthless. It means that everything is like a breath or a vapor: it’s temporary and passing. Throughout the book he’s examined our lives and concluded that everything in this life is vanity. The surprising thing is that he doesn’t just say that bad things are meaningless. He says that good things like pleasure, popularity, youth, work, wealth, and achievement are all meaningless. Everything is fleeting, and it will soon be forgotten. Ultimately, death makes everything meaningless if it wasn’t meaningless already.

It reminds me of the news story:

JACKSONVILLE, FL-- “Aladdin,” a greyhound that races at the Jacksonville Dogtrack in Jacksonville, Florida, was bitterly disappointed when he finally caught the rabbit he’s been chasing all these years and discovered it was mechanical. 

“Boy do I feel stupid,” said the greyhound. “I feel like such a fool. I’ve completely wasted my life chasing around this... mechanical rabbit.”

Aladdin had been running at the Jacksonville track for many years and chasing various mechanical animals along the way. The notion that they all may have been fake was a huge blow to him and the other dogs. Many of them paused to ponder the meanings of their lives, and wondered what the future would be like with no animals to chase.

“All my life I’ve been chasing this rabbit around thinking someday I’d be able to catch it and have a...good meal,” Alladin said. “I became obsessed with it. I admit it. It was unhealthy, but that rabbit represented something to me. And now, to find out it wasn’t even a real rabbit after all, well that’s just devastating.”

That’s the main message of Ecclesiastes, and it’s an important one for us to hear. Thousands of years later we’re still tempted to try to find meaning in all the things that the Teacher says are meaningless. It won’t work. One Christmas all the children in a family gathered around in great anticipation of opening the gifts. The gifts had been voluptuously wrapped with ribbons, and the kids were excited. Paper began to fly everywhere as they hurriedly unwrapped all of their gifts. The gifts had cost a lot and they had been well packaged. With great vim and vitality, the children began the process of unwrapping them. However, when all the gifts had been unwrapped, one of the children ask, “Is this all there is?” Evidently, some of you have experienced that. Many of us have unwrapped life and we want to know if this is all there is. The Teacher wants us to know that you can unwrap all that you can find in life, and that indeed is all that there is.

But he doesn’t leave us hopeless. He says in verses 13-14:

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

When you consider everything that the Teacher has written, you get down to the essence of living. That’s actually what “the whole duty of man” means - it’s the essence of life. It’s taking away everything that’s extraneous and boiling it down to what’s at the core. Two things.

First: Fear God. It’s something that he’s said all throughout the book. To fear God isn’t to cower. Fearing God means that we know who he is and where we stand in relation to him. It means taking him seriously, acknowledging him in our lives as the highest good. It means revering him, honoring him, and worshiping him. Tony Evans puts it best:

The old belief, centuries ago, was that the sun revolved around the earth. As we now know, this belief was wrong. The earth revolves around the sun. Many of us have got it wrong in our spiritual lives. God doesn’t revolve around us. We revolve around Him. We know that we fear God when we have made Him the centerpiece of our lives.

Second: Keep his commandments. This is what life is about. The most important thing for anyone to do is to worship God and obey his commandments. According to Charles Bridges it is “his whole happiness and business - the total sum of all that concerns him - all that God requires of him - all that the Savior enjoins - all that the Holy Spirit teaches and works in him.” We were made to worship and obey.

Verse 14 gives us a reason, but it also gives us meaning. “For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” If what Ecclesiastes says is true, and there is no God, then life really is mad, and nothing does matter. If everything is meaningless and this life is all that there is, then life would be completely absurd. But at the end of this book we’re reminded that this is not all that there is, and that life does matter. Because we will stand before God our judge, everything matters. This isn’t all there is. As someone’s said, “The final message of Ecclesiastes is not that nothing matters but that everything does” (Phil Ryken).

So here’s the point of the whole book. Life is a series of dead ends apart from God. So, fear God, and show it by keeping his commandments.

So let me ask you three questions.

One: are you taking any of the dead ends that the Teacher talks about? Do you need to be poked with any of his prods so that you don’t go down the wrong road in your search for meaning? There’s nothing wrong with work or pleasure or money or accomplishment, but they make terrible idols. Don’t take the dead ends. Learn from what the Teacher has taught us.

Two: have you experienced the Copernican revolution and oriented your life around God? That’s what it means to fear God. God does not revolve around our puny lives. The best discovery you can make is that we exist for God’s glory, and that we need to orient our lives around him and make his glory our priority. Our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Finally: are you demonstrating your love for him by obeying his commandments? Better yet, have you discovered the one who loved God perfectly and obeyed his commandments on your behalf? Jesus is the only one who has obeyed verses 13 and 14 perfectly. He came and offered his life for us. Graeme Goldsworthy says:

The gospel is saying that, what man cannot do in order to be accepted with God, this God himself has done for us in the person of Jesus Christ. To be acceptable to God we must present to God a life of perfect and unceasing obedience to his will. The gospel declares that Jesus has done this for us. For God to be righteous he must deal with our sin. This also he has done for us in Jesus. The holy law of God was lived out perfectly for us by Christ, and its penalty was paid perfectly for us by Christ. The living and dying of Christ for us, and this alone is the basis of our acceptance with God.

Our obedience is then a response to what he’s done for us rather than an attempt to get something from him.

Life is a series of dead ends apart from God. So, fear God, and show it by keeping his commandments. Put your trust in Christ, worship, and obey.

Enjoy Life, Fear God (Ecclesiastes 11:7-12:8)

For 11 years, Mary Leonard of Louisville, Kentucky, has dealt with polymyositis, a rare inflammatory tissue disease that invades the muscles. There is no known cause or cure.

Mary's case turned deadly when the disease invaded her heart. In fact, in March of 2010, Mary was told by doctors that she had 24-48 hours to live. But after 20 days in a hospice center, another 51 days in rehab, and a number of days at home, Mary is still alive. She's now reflecting on the changes that take place when you learn your time is short.

"I call myself an average Christian," Mary says. "I don't know exactly why God has done this for me, but I do know that life looks different now." She says she’s learned five life lessons as she’s grasped the brevity of life:

• Know that prayer is powerful.
• Mend fences now.
• Release the reins of life to God.
• Know that God is able—more than able.
• Put your focus on what really matters.

We’re coming to the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, a wonderful Old Testament book. As we get to the end, we’re also getting to the climax. In the passage we have before us, the Teacher is laying his cards on the table. You’ll remember that the Teacher has been exploring life and trying to find its meaning.

In the passage we have before us, the Teacher is saying to us what the doctors said to Mary: You only have a short time to live. He makes the case for this in this passage, because he knows he’s speaking to some of us who are young and who don’t believe it. Then he tells us how we should live in light of this reality.

Here’s the message of this passage: Life is short. Enjoy life while you can, and remember God. So let’s look at how he explains this. One: Life is short. Two: Enjoy life while you can. Three: remember God.

One: Life is short.

On Wednesday, June 29, elementary school kids are going to get out of school for the summer. They are going to enjoy 68 glorious days of no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers giving them the well-deserved dirty looks they’ve come to expect. You know that many of our kids live in dog years. For them the 68 days is the equivalent of years!

Many of us suffer from the reverse problem. At some point you reach the age in which you are living in reverse dog years. The summer for you is going to be the equivalent of about a week.

The issue that the Teacher is addressing in this passage is that many of us have not grasped that life is very short. We only have a very limited time. When you’re young, you don’t realize this. So he says in verses 7 and 8:

Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.

So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.

You may be surprised by verse 7. Most people think the Teacher is a pessimist. In verse 7 he uses light as an image for life and says that life is good. It’s sweet! You want to enjoy life the way that you enjoy the sweetness of honey. You want to enjoy life as much as you can.

In verse 8 he continues: “So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all.” Sometimes we begin to take life for granted. We can go through entire years in which we’re not really living. We’re waiting. We’re in a holding pattern. The Teacher tells us not to do this. Really live. Really engage in life.

But then he says: “let him remember that the days of darkness will be many.” This is the sobering part. He’s writing to young people who have all of life in front of them and who may be tempted to waste some years of their life because they have so many. He’s telling them that life is sweet, but is it ever short. It’s going to be over before you know it. We are mortal. Our days are few. Soon this life that we have will be over, and all of our works will fade away. Life is very short; death is long, according to verse 8. We must remember this if we are to live life wisely now.

Just in case we don’t get his point, the Teacher includes a poignant and moving description of what it’s like to get older in 12:1-8. Remember that he’s writing to young people. He even says, “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.” Here’s the reason why. The Teacher says that there’s going to come a time when we’re not young anymore. “Die early or grow old; there is no other alternative. And yet, as Goethe said, ‘Age takes hold of us by surprise’” (Simone de Beauvoir). Here’s the problem: I want to live 90 years and die as a 30-year-old. The Teacher tells us that it isn’t going to happen. He says that one day:

• we’ll stop taking pleasure in life (12:2)
• our eyesight will diminish and we’ll long for the days when we only needed bifocals (12:3)
• Our bodies will be like a decaying old house that trembles and is weak (12:3)
• Our teeth will decay (12:3)
• Our hearing will diminish (12:4)
• We’ll be much more fearful of falling or of dangers (12:5)
• Our hair will change color if we have any (12:5)
• Our sexual desire will diminish (12:5)
• We’ll become less agile, and eventually we’ll die (12:5-7)

You try telling someone who’s young that all of this is true. The Teacher says: it is true. And when you’re young, it’s very important to understand that life is sweet, but it is also very short.

A woman went to a new doctor. She realized she had gone to school with this doctor. He was the cute guy in class that he had a crush on. She said, “I think I remember you from this school.” He looked at her and said, “You were at that school? What did you teach?” Like this doctor, the Teacher is reminding us that time is going much quicker than we think. When we are young we had better realize that life is sweet, but our time is short, much shorter than we could ever think when we’re young.

So what should we do?

Life is short. So enjoy life while you can.

How do we respond to the brevity of life? The Teacher says:

Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

This is confusing at first. On one hand, you can look at death and allow yourself to be depressed. Or, on the other hand, you can deny death and be happy. These are the two options that we normally hold out before people. Pretend you’re ageless and really live, or acknowledge the reality of death and hate everything about it. Our culture is all about this. We spend $88 billion a year trying to look younger and trying to prevent aging so that we don’t have to look at the fact that our lives are short, and that we’re farther alone than many of us would like.

But here the Teacher gives us another alternative: Look at the brevity of life and allow it to drive you to make the most of every moment. He refuses to embrace denial or cynicism and calls us to realistic joy, knowing that we have limited time and so we’d better make it count.

He commands us to rejoice; to let our hearts be glad. He calls us to “let your heart be glad in the days of your youth.” If you are young, you have a unique opportunity to put this into practice. You aren’t yet facing the problems of aging that he describes in the next chapter. Your body is strong. The future is full of possibilities. You have the freedom to take risks and to chose your direction in life. You can dream about the difference you’ll make with your life.

So he advises you to take advantage of your youth, because your youth will not last. Chase after your hopes. He even says in verse 10 that you should eliminate the things in your life that trouble your body and soul. When you’re young, again, you have the opportunity to deal with things at their early stages. We planted a little willow twig in our backyard when we moved in 20 years ago. The first little while I could have just walked up to that twig and yanked it out of the ground. Today it’s a huge tree, and it’s not going anywhere. When you’re young, deal with things and take advantage of the unique opportunities you have in life, because youth is fleeting. You won’t have a chance to do this forever.

He’s not telling us to be self-indulgent and to live as we please. But he is telling us to live joyfully in the world that God has created, knowing that we don’t have unlimited time to do so. When we’re young, it looks like we have countless days ahead of us. So the Teacher tells us to realize the opportunities aren’t unlimited. Don’t postpone the opportunities God has given you. Don’t postpone enjoyment to a future time when you, say, have your own car, finish university, are married, or have a great job. Enjoy the present!

This is a theme that comes up a lot in Scripture. Psalm 90:12 says, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Paul says, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16).

What we don’t want is to look back at life one day and wish we lived differently when we had the chance. In his book Don't Waste Your Life, John Piper recounts a story his father often told in his days as a fiery Baptist evangelist. It is the story of a man who came to saving faith in Jesus Christ near the end of his earthly existence. Piper writes:

The church had prayed for this man for decades. He was hard and resistant. But this time, for some reason, he showed up when my father was preaching. At the end of the service, during a hymn, to everyone's amazement he came and took my father's hand. They sat down together on the front pew of the church as the people were dismissed. God opened his heart to the Gospel of Christ, and he was saved from his sins and given eternal life. But that did not stop him from sobbing and saying, as the tears ran down his wrinkled face, "I've wasted it! I've wasted it!"

Don’t be that man! But even if you are, another pastor comments on this story:

By the grace of God, even a life that is almost totally wasted can still be redeemed. As the Scottish theologian Thomas Boston once said, our present existence is only "a short preface to a long eternity." If that is true, then the man's life was not wasted after all; he was only just beginning an eternal life of endless praise. But why wait even a moment longer before starting to serve Jesus? You have only one life to live. Don't waste it by living for yourself when you can use it instead for the glory of God. (Phil Ryken)

Life is short. So enjoy life while you can. But there’s one more thing the Teacher tells us.

Life is short. Enjoy life while you can, and remember God.

11:9 says, “But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.” This doesn’t put a damper on our pursuit of joy. This isn’t a downer. Seize every moment and enjoy the gifts God has given you, but remember God in your joy. Don’t give in to irresponsible self-indulgence. See enjoyment as a gift from God. Remember God so that you can enjoy your life.

Again, 12:1 says: “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth.” The Teacher reminds us that God is our Creator. He is the one who has given us everything that we have. He gave us life. He is the one who’s given us our family and friends. He’s created everything we have that we get to enjoy.

The problem is that it is so easy to forget the one who made us, especially when we’re young. It’s so easy to simply live for ourselves. It’s easy to forget. One of the reasons we celebrate communion so regularly is because we need to be reminded on a regular basis what Christ has done for us. We are far too quick to forget.

Life is short, so enjoy it while you can. But while you’re enjoying it, don’t forget the one who created you. The one who created you is not only your Maker but your Judge. The only way to live in light of someone who is both your Creator and Judge and who’s given you everything is to live your life in orbit around him. Center your life on him. Give your life to God now, while you still have enough passion to make a difference in the world. How much more is this true when we realize that God is not just our Maker and our Judge but also our Savior. We come to remember this morning that the one who made us and the one who will judge us is also revealed as the Triune God. God sent his Son to die for our sins, and the Son willingly came. The one who made us became the one who died for us. He’s given us this brief life in which we can enjoy the strength he’s given us to really live, knowing that our Creator and Judge is also our Savior.

Bono from U2 has written:

Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books. It’s about a character who wants to find out why he’s alive, why he was created. He tries knowledge. He tries wealth. He tries experience. He tries everything. You hurry to the end of the book to find out why, and it says, “Remember your Creator.” In a way, it’s such a letdown. Yet it isn’t.

Bono’s right. It’s not a letdown. Getting to know your Creator, Judge, and Savior before we grow old and die is one of the most important things we can ever do. No matter how old you are, you have the opportunity to use the rest of your life beginning now, resolving to waste no more time, but to live every moment for the glory of the one who is your Creator, Judge, and Savior.

Let’s pray.

Years ago, Jonathan Edwards made these resolutions.

• Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
• Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.
• Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
• Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.
• Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure.

Father, may we resolve today to know that life is short. And may we resolve to make the most of every moment you’ve given us. Most of all, may we resolve to live every day in light of the one who not only created us, and who will not only judge us, but who has also saved us. In the name of Jesus our Savior we pray. Amen.

Be Bold and Wise (Ecclesiastes 11:1-6)

If you travel to Cairo, Egypt, you can visit an abandoned graveyard at the end of a garbage-lined alley. And if you look carefully at that graveyard, you’ll come across one tombstone in particular. The tombstone is for William Borden (1887-1913). You wouldn’t expect this grave to belong to anyone important, but you’d be wrong. William Borden was educated at Yale and Princeton. He became a Christian under the ministry of the great evangelist D.L. Moody. He was heir to the Borden dairy estate, which was a fortune. But William Borden gave it all away out of a desire to share the gospel with those who had never heard it.

So Borden decided to become a missionary to the Muslims of China. He was a millionaire by the time he was 21, but he gave it all away to missions. His father told him he would never work in the company again. Borden traveled to Egypt for his missionary training, but while he was there he contracted spinal meningitis and died at the age of 25, before he had even reached his mission field. And really all that’s left of his life is this gravestone in an abandoned cemetery at the end of a garbage-lined alley. Borden risked everything, and he lost everything as a result.

We’re looking today at the book of Ecclesiastes, and the story I just told really seems to belong with this book. It’s depressing! The story that I just told could be used as an incentive to play it safe. See what happens when you take a risk? Look at what happened to William Borden! That’s what happens if you go into missions! I could tell you all kinds of stories that would make you retreat from life and play things completely safe and never take any risks at all.

When our kids were young, Charlene told them a story about a lady who was eating chicken. I’m not quite sure about all the details of the story, but I think the story involved choking on a chicken bone and almost dying. To this day our kids are cautious when eating chicken that contains any bones. Who knew that eating at Swiss Chalet could be so dangerous? It’s easy to conclude that we should just retreat to safety and never take any risks at all.

In 1927, a small fire took place at a theatre in Montreal. 800 children were watching a movie. When smoke began to fill the theatre, the kids panicked. 78 children died. The next year they passed a law that children under 16 would be forbidden from attending theaters screenings. The law stayed on the books for 33 years.

Life is uncertain. Missionaries die. People choke on bones. Kids die in theaters. Maybe we should agree right here and now that nobody should ever be a missionary, we should never eat chicken, and no more movies for our kids!

That’s what we’re looking at in the passage we have before us. Multiple times in this passage, the Teacher tells us that we don’t know what’s going to happen in life. Because we don’t know what’s going to happen, how then should we live? Should we play it safe, or take risks?

That’s the question the Teacher answers. And he says two things.

First, he says, take wise risks.

In the light of the risks of life, should we take risks or play it safe? The Teacher answers in verse 1:

Cast your bread upon the waters,
for you will find it after many days.

What does this mean? It obviously doesn’t mean getting soggy pieces of bread back that you’ve thrown into the waves. The new edition of the NIV puts it this way:

Ship your grain across the sea;
after many days you may receive a return.

You see what the Teacher is saying here? Life is risky. The world is uncertain. There are all kinds of ways that we can take risks and end up losing everything. When Ecclesiastes was written, Israel had been transformed from a small agricultural nation to one that was right on the trading route between Egypt and Asia/Europe. Some Israelites had already lost fortunes. In chapter 5, the Teacher had already talked about someone who had lost everything in a bad venture. So what should we do? In verse 1, the Teacher tells us to take a risk. Engage in international trade, and wait for the goods to sell, and the ships to return with fine goods from foreign lands. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. To “find it after many days” is to receive the reward that comes after risking a wise investment. Get out there and make something happen, the Teacher says.

Verse 2 continues the thought, but adds a condition:

Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight;
you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.

Here again you have the element of risk. You probably follow what he’s teaching here: don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Diversify your investments. Don’t withdraw from investing, because then you’ll lose out on any potential gain. Don’t just invest in one or two ventures, because they could fail, and if they fail you lose everything. Invest in seven or eight ventures. Some of them are bound to fail, but some of them may do well, and may be more than enough to make up for what you could lose. Take risks, but take them wisely.

He’s emphasizing how risky all of this is, but he gives us some perspective in the next verse:

If clouds are full of water,
they pour rain on the earth.
Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where it falls, there it will lie.

Here’s what he’s saying. We know some things. If the clouds are full of water, it’s going to rain at some point. If a tree falls, you may not know which way it’s going to fall, but once it’s fallen it’s not getting back up. There are some things we can know for sure. This makes it even more important for us to make wise investments, because if we carefully study how things should work, then we should know that some things work better than others.

We’re going to apply this in a minute, but let’s look first at the second thing that he tells us. He’s told us to invest boldly and wisely. Now he tells us what not to do.

Second, don’t wait for perfect conditions.

This is what he tells us in verse 4:

Whoever watches the wind will not plant;
whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

Some people don’t struggle with taking too many risks. Some people are so risk-averse that they wait for conditions to be perfect before they try anything.

The picture the Teacher gives us is of a farmer waiting for perfect conditions in which to plant. It’s important to pay attention to conditions. Even today farmers will study clouds or watch the weather channel. Back when this was written, the ideal conditions for sowing would be when there was minimal wind. That way you could scatter the seeds evenly over the field. But you could get carried away and never scatter the seed because the conditions were never good enough. At some point, you have to take the risk. At some point, you just have to scatter the seed.

Do you see the picture that the Teacher is developing here? Take risks, but take them wisely. Don’t wait for perfect conditions. If you wait for perfect conditions then you’ll never do anything, because the perfect conditions may never materialize. Take a chance, not just in business but in life. If you don’t take a risk, you won’t ever do anything with what God has given you.

Here’s the conclusion, in verses 5 and 6:

As you do not know the path of the wind,
or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
the Maker of all things.
Sow your seed in the morning,
and at evening let your hands not be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed,
whether this or that,
or whether both will do equally well.

We don’t know a lot, the Teacher says. We don’t know what God will prosper, or what will fail. So don’t let that stop you from doing something. Let that be the very reason that you get out there and make things happen. Sow your seed in the morning. Get to work in the evening. Take a risk. God is sovereign, and it just may be that he uses something that you do.

This is so important that Jesus said a similar thing. In Matthew 25, Jesus told a story about servants who were given money to invest on behalf of their master. Some invested very well and were commended by the master. But one servant played it safe because he didn’t want to take any risks. The master was incredibly harsh. He squandered the opportunity he had to do something with what his master had given him.

So What?

This may be one of the easiest passages in Ecclesiastes to explain, but one of the hardest to apply.

Life and ministry are risky. There are risks everyday. There are risks in using the gifts that God has given us. There’s a risk to sharing our faith. There’s a risk in having children. There’s a risk in giving financially to support ministries. There’s risk in going to the mission field. There’s risk in almost everything that we do.

We are prone to play it safe. Whenever we look at Scripture, it’s good to ask what part of our fallen natures this particular passage addresses. In this case, I think this passage is confronting our fears. We are prone to fear. I don’t think of myself as a fearful person. Last year, through a series of events, God revealed to me that I am much more fearful than I had ever imagined myself to be. It was a revelation that I didn’t welcome at first, but I’m glad that God revealed some of my fears to me. We can spend our entire lives running scared, more fearful of events and people than we are of God.

God calls us to live lives of holy boldness. If you look at Matthew 25, Jesus is calling us to wisely risk what God has given us to profit our master - God. God is calling us to wisely invest our lives to his glory. One day we will give account to God for what we’ve done with what he’s given us. Jesus makes it clear that we won’t be able to say that we just played it safe. So let me ask you: what has God called you to do that you haven’t done because of fear?

Finally, we need to see that the results are in his hands. We are not in charge of results. We are in charge of being faithful with what God has given us. The rest is up to God.

I began with the story of William Borden. He risked, and it looked like he lost. After his death, Borden's Bible was found and given to his parents. In it they found in one place the words "No Reserve" and a date placing the note shortly after he renounced his fortune in favor of missions. At a later point, he had written "No Retreat", dated shortly after his father told he would never let him work in the company ever again. Shortly before he died in Egypt, he added the phrase "No Regrets." Borden risked, but he risked appropriately.

I could speak of other missionaries. Missionary Karen Watson was killed in Iraq. She wrote this letter in 2003, almost a year to the day before she was killed.

Dear Pastor Phil and Pastor Roger:

You should only be opening this letter in the event of my death.

When God calls there are no regrets. I tried to share my heart with you as much as possible, my heart for the nations. I wasn't called to a place. I was called to him. To obey was my objective, to suffer was expected, his glory my reward, his glory my reward.

One of the most important things to remember right now is to preserve the work….I am writing this as if I am still working with my people group.

I thank you all so much for your prayers and support. Surely your reward in heaven will be great. Thank you for investing in my life and spiritual well-being. Keep sending missionaries out. Keep raising up fine young pastors.

In regards to any service, keep it small and simple. Yes, simply, just preach the gospel….Be bold and preach the life-saving, life-changing, forever-eternal gospel. Give glory and honor to our Father.

The Missionary Heart:
Care more than some think is wise.
Risk more than some think is safe.
Dream more than some think is practical.
Expect more than some think is possible.

I was called not to comfort or success but to obedience….There is no joy outside of knowing Jesus and serving him. I love you two and my church family.

In his care,
Salaam,
Karen

I could even remind you that nobody really knows the impact of the actions they’ve taken. Luke Short was 103 when he thought of a sermon that he once heard. Sitting in Virginia, he asked God to forgive his sins through Jesus Christ. He died three years later at 106. His tombstone read, “Here lies a babe in grace, aged three years, who died according to nature, aged 106.” But here’s the remarkable part: the sermon that he remembered that caused him to become a Christian that day was one that he had heard 85 years earlier across the ocean in England. Nearly a century had passed between the preaching of his sermon and the conversion; between the sowing and the reaping. You never know what God might do.

Because we don’t know what God will prosper, use every opportunity to live wisely and boldly. Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, because you never know what God may prosper.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

Let Marriage Be Held in Honor (Hebrews 13:4)

Every year the Queen gives a speech around Christmas. I’m just waiting for the day that they come out with a movie called The Queen’s Speech. In any case, the speeches are fascinating. If you listen to all these speeches, you’d learn a lot about history. You’d also learn a lot about the Queen, just like you would about yourself if you made a recording of yourself speaking once very year for fifty years. Surprisingly, you can learn a lot about accents. A scholar has completed an acoustic analysis of fifty years of the Queen’s Royal Christmas messages for the Journal of Phonetics - you may not subscribe - and has concluded that even the Queen’s accent has changed along with that of the nation over these years. All of this to say: even the Queen is a product of her times. You can’t help but change along with the world as it changes.

Accents are a funny thing. When I visit Boston, someone always eventually mentions my accent. I’m not aware that I have an accent, but neither are they. When you live in a certain location, that becomes normal to you. You adapt and blend in and even begin to speak like those around you.

The passage we’re looking at this morning touches on this issue. We’re looking at the book of Hebrews this morning. It’s written to Christians who are struggling in their devotion to Christ. We don’t know what situation these Christians were facing, but it appears that they were wavering in their faith. Hebrews encourages them to hold on, to endure throughout trials and to grasp the uniqueness of their faith in Christ.

The passage we’re reading is found at the end of the book in what’s sometimes called the “concluding exhortations and remarks.” The writer touches on five areas in which these Christians may have picked up an accent, so to speak, from the surrounding culture. They may have been so influenced by the culture in these areas that they needed a correction. This would actually make a great series someday, because all five are actually issues that I think we struggle with today as well.

The fourth area that the writer tackles is found in verse 4: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” Think about this. Why would he write this? The author is addressing the fact that these Christians had probably picked up an attitude about marriage from the culture that was less than what it should be.

When Hebrews was written, marriage was under attack from two sides. One group felt that marriage was too restrictive. They believed that chastity in marriage was an unreasonable standard. In some corners of society, men were expected to take on mistresses and confidantes and as sexual partners. Their beliefs line up very well with the CEO of a website that’s designed to facilitate extramarital affairs. Log on and you have immediate access to thousands of men and women willing to kick their vows to the curb for a no-strings-attached sexual tryst. The CEO said, “People cheat because their lives aren't working for them." He went on to insist "humans aren't meant to be monogamous." That’s exactly what many people believed back then. And it’s possible that the recipients of this letter were beginning to be influenced by this mentality.

But marriage was also under attach from another side. There were others who were into asceticism. This one seems a little unusual to us today. There were some who devalued marriage because they say marriage as too indulgent. They believed that it’s better to deny oneself.

Whatever the thinking, the recipients of this letter were in danger of being influenced by a low view of marriage within society. It’s the same danger that we face today. A 2005 study found that 1 in 5 married Canadians between the ages of 35 and 54 wish that they could go to bed married and wake up single. One in ten would cheat on their partner if there was no chance of getting caught. Love is highly valued in our culture, but marriage is not. Listen to the plot of a recent movie: “A married man is granted the opportunity to have an affair by his wife. Joined in the fun by his best pal, things get a little out of control when both wives start engaging in extramarital activities as well.”

Here’s the danger: just like you can pick up an accent without knowing it, you can also pick up a low view of marriage. So the writer to the Hebrews says that this is one of the key issues that we need to deal with. What can we do about this? The writer says that there are three things that we can do. They’re just as important today as they were back then. One: honor marriage. Two: keep the sexual relationship pure. Three: remember that God will judge.

Let’s look at each of these.

First: Honor marriage.

You’ve probably heard a few marriage jokes. A man bragged on his marriage once and said, “In our marriage, my wife and I have decided to never go to bed angry. We haven’t been to sleep in three weeks!” I know, not very good. There are lots like that. I think I’ve heard them all.

There’s nothing wrong with telling a good joke. But the writer to the Hebrews cautions us against crossing a line and treating marriage as commonplace, of treating it flippantly. You can joke about marriage - but be careful that you don’t slip across the line and begin to treat it with contempt.

Hebrews 13:4 says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all.”

When these words were written - as today - many people weren’t holding marriage in honor. You’ve heard already that some thought of marriage as too restrictive. They looked for pleasure and intimacy outside of marriage. Others went to the other extreme and dismissed marriage as indulgent. When society dishonors marriage, it’s possible for us to begin to dishonor marriage without even realizing it.

Hebrews confronts us. It calls us to buck the trend in society and to honor marriage when others are not.

I want you to notice what he says. “Let marriage be held in honor.” What does it mean to hold something in honor? The word honor connotes respect. It attributes preciousness and value to someone or something. Occasionally I’ll go home and find that someone has accidentally left the door open. Sometimes when this happens I’ll go and check to see if certain things are missing. I never go and check to see if someone’s stolen the pots in the kitchen cupboard, because frankly, they’re not valuable to me. You could say that I don’t honor my pots. But I do honor things like our old photo albums. They’re the things I’d pull out of the house in case of fire.

Hebrews tells us that this is how we should think of marriage. John Piper puts it this way:

The Bible is telling us: Let marriage always be thought of as precious. Let it be treasured like gold and silver and rare jewels. Let it be revered and respected like the noblest, most virtuous person you have ever known. Let it be esteemed and valued as something terribly costly…In other words, when you think of marriage, let yourself be gripped by emotions of tremendous respect and sanctity. In relation to marriage cultivate the feeling that this not to be touched quickly or handled casually or treated commonly. In God's eyes marriage is precious and therefore he says, "Let marriage be held in honor among all."

Honoring marriage means that we see marriage as precious. If you’re married, it means seeing your marriage as precious. But it also means that you see other people’s marriages as valuable as well. It means that we speak well of the institution of marriage.

Honoring marriage means that we don’t take the easy road when our marriages get into trouble. Every marriage - every one - is a marriage of two sinners. I’m no prophet, but I know that when two people marry each other, problems are inevitable. There will be times when it’s easier to pack it in. Honoring marriage means that we pay the cost to preserve what’s valuable, even when the cost is high.

Honoring marriage means that we’re careful how we speak of marriage. It means that we don’t trash-talk marriage - our own, or about marriage in general. Personally, I don’t ever want to joke about divorce. When I joke about divorce, I feel like I am making light of something that isn’t funny at all. I want the way I speak to show that I am holding marriage in honor.

Notice also that he says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all.” I usually struggle a little when I’m preaching on marriage, because I realize that not everyone here is married. Usually when I’m preaching on marriage, I’m not talking to everyone. But this is one message on marriage that applies to all of us. Whether you’re single or married, young or old, let marriage be held in honor by all. This command applies to everyone. One of the people in my life who’s been the most supportive of our marriage is someone who’s single. This command applies to all of us.

If you travel down the road about an hour, you’ll reach the vineyards of Niagara. In order for a vine of grapes to become fruitful, the branches of the vine must be elevated. The branches are tied to a post for support. As grapes develop and grow, the vine will become too heavy and begin to droop and drag on the ground. Elevation not only keeps the fruit off of the ground but also helps them to get the full benefit of the sun. After a time the branches begin to spread along this post to which they have been tied. Having been made stable, they are then free to climb or to spread.

In the same way, marriages cannot grow until marriage itself is elevated and respected. Honoring marriage allows our marriages to be lifted off the ground. Our marriages are then free to flourish, to climb, and to be fruitful.

So honor marriage. Let marriage be held in honor among all. We are to highly value this divinely ordained union and to support those who are married in every way that’s possible. But that’s not all. There’s a second thing that the writer tells us we should do:

Second: Keep the sexual relationship pure.

Verse 4 says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”

If there is any area in which we can be guilty of treating the marriage relationship with dishonor, it’s in the area of sex. Sex is one of the greatest trouble spots in marriage. We’re bombarded with sexual temptation. Sex is one of God’s gifts to us, but sin is eager to take this gift and turn it against us.

I love what the writer to the Hebrews says here. One of the ways that we can go against the cultural grain, and one of the ways we can hold marriage in honor, is to pursue sexual purity. He gives us both the positive and the negative side of this. First, the positive: “Let the marriage bed be undefiled.” He’s saying here that the integrity of the sexual relationship in marriage must be kept. The implication is that sex within marriage is acceptable to God. It’s a good thing. One person I read this week put it well:

Surely it was God’s full intention for the physical joining together of a man and woman to be one of the mountaintop experiences of life, one of those summit points of both physical and mystical rapture in which He Himself might overshadow his people in love, might come down among them and be most intimately and powerfully revealed. How horribly tragic, therefore, that it is here at this very point, here at this precious male-female encounter which ought to be overflowing with holiness, that godless people have succeeded in descending to some of the most abysmal levels of human degradation…Sex is sacred ground. (Mike Mason)

The call to “let the marriage bed be undefiled” is really a positive one. There’s a negative side - what not to do, which we’ll see in a minute. But it’s a call to joy. It’s a call to receive one of God’s greatest gifts to us. All through Scripture you see a call to delight in sexual pleasure within marriage. It’s a good thing. Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings, once wrote to C.S. Lewis, author of the Chronicles of Narnia, and said, “Christian marriage is not a prohibition of sexual intercourse, but the correct way of sexual temperance–in fact probably the best way of getting the most satisfying sexual pleasure…” It is a gift. It’s the best and most satisfying way to enjoy the sexual relationship. “Let the marriage bed be undefiled.”

But there’s a negative part to this command as well. There are a couple of things we need to avoid in verse 4: sexual immorality and adultery. The first is a more general term for those sexual acts outside of marriage, while adultery is used of those who are unfaithful to their marriage. Together the two terms cover all who engage in illicit sexual behavior. Taken together, you have things that destroy sexual intimacy in marriage.

We need to be clear about this. These things distort a good gift from God and turn it into something harmful that can be used against us. The Inuit used to kill wolves in a strange way. They’d put out a knife in the ice, blade up. They’d take animal blood, put it all over the knife, and freeze it. A wolf would smell the blood and come and begin to lick the knife. It tasted good to the wolf so the wolf would lick faster and faster and harder and harder, not realizing that the knife had now cut its own tongue. It would keep licking. The next day the wolf would be dead. It had eaten its own blood because it just couldn’t get enough. Commenting on this, Tony Evans says:

We are eating ourselves alive today with sex. We can’t get enough. We can’t get enough on the TV. We can’t get enough on cable. We can’t get enough on Playboy channels. We can’t get enough on HBO. We can’t get enough of the magazines. We can’t get enough of Victoria’s Secrets. We can’t get enough. So, since we can’t get enough, we keep licking harder and faster…We can’t get enough and the judgment for this sin is built in to the disobedience.

What we need to realize today is that there are a lot of us who are licking the knife. What we don’t realize is that every time we lick the knife, we’re hurting ourselves. We’re killing the joy that could be ours in this area. To use the phrase from Hebrews, we’ll be defiling the marriage bed, the very bed that’s supposed to be a place of intimacy and guilt-free joy.

I realize this morning that there are a lot of people who have already failed in this area. There are a lot of people who are struggling. In just a few minutes I want to talk to you. I don’t want to leave you struggling. I want to give you some hope. But please understand how serious this is. A council studied the effects of pornography and concluded that pornography "corrodes the conscience, promotes distrust between husbands and wives and debases untold thousands of young women." They conclude that that pornography is "a quiet family killer."

So honor marriage. If you’re married, keep the sexual relationship pure. There’s one more thing:

Third: Realize that God will judge.

This is sobering. Verse 4 concludes, “...for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” This is sobering. We may get away with something here and now. Not everyone gets caught. We’re licking the knife and damaging ourselves, it’s true, but the writer says that’s not all. God is also watching. God takes notice. And God takes this very seriously. We live our marriages before God, and God cares very much about this area.

At this point you may be thinking that God is a great spoilsport. Who is God to judge? The answer, of course, is that God is God. He has every right to judge. But we also need to realize that God is not judging because he’s a spoilsport. We need a God who is wrathful. N.T. Wright explains:

The biblical doctrine of God's wrath is rooted in the doctrine of God as the good, wise and loving creator, who hates—yes, hates, and hates implacably—anything that spoils, defaces, distorts, or damages his beautiful creation, and in particular anything that does that to his image-bearing creatures. If God does not hate racial prejudice, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not wrathful at child abuse, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not utterly determined to root out from his creation, in an act of proper wrath and judgment, the arrogance that allows people to exploit, bomb, bully and enslave one another, he is neither loving, nor good, nor wise.

If God did not judge adultery, he would not be holy. If God did not hate pornography and the destruction that it brings, then he would not be good. We need God to act as judge in this matter - but it also terrifies us, because we know we’re in trouble. We know that if God opened our hearts, he would find lots there that isn’t right. If God examined our actions, we know that we would fail his judgment.

So What?

That’s where I want to end this morning. I want to close by considering what exactly it is that we need to do as a response to this very short verse.

Three things:

First, some of you have been dishonoring marriage. You may be doing it because you’ve picked it up like a bad accent. You may be doing it out of hurt. It has to stop. It may be that God is calling you this morning to honor marriage like never before. This is going to be costly for some of you. Honoring marriage vows, for instance, is incredibly costly. But Scripture is calling you to go against the flow and to take this seriously, starting today.

Second, some of us here need to stop defiling the marriage bed. Tim Chester's new book, Closing the Window: Steps to Living Porn Free, offers up five key ingredients that must be present and in place for someone to win the battle with pornography.

1. An abhorrence of porn. You have to hate porn itself (not just the shame it brings), and long for change.
2. You must adore God. Why? Because we can be confident that He offers more than porn.
3. You must be assured of God's grace. You are loved by God and are right with Go through faith in the work of Jesus.
4. You must avoid temptation. Be committed to do all you in your power to avoid temptation, starting with the controls on your computer.
5. You must be accountable to others. You need a community of Christians who are holding you accountable and supporting you in your struggle.

Tim Chester never claims it's easy. This isn't a "take these five steps and everything will be just fine" treatment. No, life is messy. And this is a messy battle. It's a battle we must understand, engage in, and fight with long-suffering intensity. We need to take this seriously so that we stop polluting what is meant to be holy and joyful.

Finally: some of us need the cleansing that can come only from God. Paul writes some very harsh words in 1 Corinthians 6:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

Harsh words indeed. But then he says:

And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:11)

I love how John Piper puts it: “Lay hold on your forgiveness, and take it with you to the marriage bed. Christ died for your sin that in him you might have guilt-free sexual relations in marriage.”

We’re coming to the communion table this morning. Today is a great day to receive the forgiveness and cleansing that Christ can offer, to receive the forgiveness that we can take with us into our marriages.

Think about this. Think about a group of people who don’t pick up the accent of our day. Think about a group of Christians who hold marriage in high honor - not in a political crusader type of way, but in their behavior and in their respect. Think of people who are washed and cleansed and sanctified from their past, and who are living lives of purity and joy in their marriages. That’s the invitation that’s open to us this morning. Let’s pray.

Father, thank you for this invitation to go against the grain of culture. We pray that as we come to the table today that you would meet us where we are. Please change us so that we are transformed and cleansed to do what is written here. Change us and cleanse us, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Eyes Are Opened (Luke 24)

Of all the stories out there, my favorite is one that involves a reversal of fortunes at the end. All seems lost, but at the very last minute something unexpected happens, and the day is saved, and everything bad that happened is undone.

So near the end of The Lord of the Rings - the book, not the movie - Sam realizes that he and Frodo have survived, and that Gandalf has returned from the dead. Sam says, "It wasn't a dream?" When he realizes it isn't, he lays back with both joy and bewilderment and asks, "Is everything sad going to come untrue?" A great question. Is everything sad going to come untrue?

Out of all of the stories of reversal, the one that we just read beats them all. And what's more, it claims to be true. This morning I want to do three things, nothing more. I want to look at why it's hard to believe, how we can believe it, and what difference it makes when we do believe it.

First, why it's hard to believe.

One of the hardest things to believe about Christianity is the resurrection. There are lots of people who believe a lot of things about Jesus - that he was a good man, a great teacher, even a prophet. They will even believe that he died on the cross. But believing that he physically rose from the dead and left an empty tomb is a whole different matter.

You may be someone who finds it hard to believe, in which case I say: You're in very good company. As we look at this passage, we find skepticism as the prevailing reaction. We read about a group of women coming to embalm Jesus' body, and when they find the tomb empty, verse 4 says that they wonder what happened. That's putting it mildly. The Greek is much stronger. It says they were bewildered, perplexed. The picture is of women who are confused and anxious, just like we'd be if we showed up at the tomb of one of our friends and found a big hole, an empty casket, and the clothes that they were buried lying on the ground.

You imagine telling your friends about that, especially if you add some details about angels. In those days, the testimony of women was inadmissible in court. The historian Josephus wrote, "From women let no evidence be accepted, because of the levity and temerity of their sex." They didn't exactly have progressive views of women. So when these women show up in a room full of Jesus' followers, we read, "But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense" (Luke 24:11). Even Peter, who at least goes to investigate, doesn't automatically buy in. He finds the grave just as the women had described it, but walks away wondering what it all means. Nobody can figure it out.

You find this all throughout the chapter. Two disciples are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, about seven miles away. They're both dejected by what's happened. Neither one has any hope of any resurrection. Later on we see the disciples again, and they as they try to make sense of what happened on Easter morning, they're ready to believe in almost anything other than a physical resurrection.

N.T. Wright has done an exhaustive study of the thinking in Jesus' day, and concludes that nobody even had a category for this to happen. Greeks and Romans thought that the body is corrupt, and that a soul is liberated from the body. Resurrection was not only impossible, but it was undesirable. The Jewish people, on the other hand, believed in resurrection, but at some future point when God will renew the entire cosmos. It was a future event, not something that happens here and now. "The idea of an individual being resurrected, in the middle of history, while the rest of the world continued on burdened by sickness, decay, and death, was inconceivable" (Tim Keller, The Reason for God).

I know we have this belief that we're sophisticated today, that we doubt things like miracles and resurrections, but people back then were ready to believe anything. C.S. Lewis calls this "chronological snobbery" - thinking that we modern people take claims of a bodily resurrection with skepticism, while thinking that the ancients would have immediately accepted it. But that's not at all the case. A dead person was a dead person. They wouldn't have any easier a time than we would in believing that someone who was dead is alive again. Nobody would have even thought of resurrection as a possibility. Everybody understood that Jesus was dead. Jesus' death wasn't a setback for them; it was game over. Jesus joined the scrap-heap of history along with all the other messiah figures who were killed. Game over.

Wright says again:

Jewish revolutionaries whose leader had been executed by the authorities, and who managed to escape arrest themselves, had two options: give up the revolution, or find another leader. Claiming that the original leader was alive again was simply not an option. Unless, of course, he was. (Who Was Jesus?)

This is good news for those of us here who are skeptical about the resurrection. Join the club. You should be skeptical; everyone else was. Jesus' closest followers, his dearest friends, couldn't believe it either. In fact, if you're feeling skeptical this morning, you shouldn't feel too bad about it. There would be a problem if you didn't approach the subject of Easter with skepticism. The disciples and friends of Jesus were just as skeptical as you are.

How We Can Believe It

The reality is, though, that something happened to change their minds. They started out skeptical. They didn't even have a category for a physical resurrection here and now. Yet within a short time, all of that changed. It not only changed for them, but it also changed the course of human history. How can we experience the same thing today, assuming we'd even want to?

I'll tell you what's important, but not enough. Many of the people who experienced that Easter morning examined the evidence. Some went and investigated the empty tomb themselves. They looked at the grave clothes lying on the ground, at the stone that had been rolled away. When Jesus appeared to them in verses 39-43, they looked at him. Jesus offered that they could touch him to verify that he wasn't a spirit; it was really him in his body. They watched him eat a fish. Spirits don't eat fish.

Today, it's important - but not enough - for you to examine the evidence for yourself. Books like Mere Christianity are excellent. A more recent one is The Reason for God, which is on the New York Times Bestseller list. These are important, especially if you are trying to make sense of what happened that morning. It only makes sense to investigate the evidence. For instance, why would Luke have recorded the testimony of women when women weren't considered reliable witnesses? He must have been under tremendous pressure to change the story. Why didn't he, unless it really happened that way? What transformed a group of cowards into people who turned the world upside down? How do you explain their willingness to die? Pascal said, "I [believe] those witnesses that get their throats cut." There are all kinds of things that can't be explained unless the resurrection really happened, and it's important - but not enough - to look at all the evidence.

Something more is needed.

I'll tell you what happened. Their eyes were opened. When they started out, they saw all of the evidence but they didn't really see it. Karl Barth, the Swiss theologian, was on a streetcar one day in Basel, Switzerland. A tourist sat next to him, and they started chatting. Barth asked them if there was anything they were hoping to see while they visited the city. "Yes," the man said, "I'd love to meet the famous theologian Karl Barth. Do you know him?" Barth replied, "As a matter of fact, I do. In fact, I give him a shave every morning." The tourist was pretty excited. He went back to the hotel thinking, "I met Karl Barth's barber today." He saw Karl Barth but he didn't really understand what he was seeing. The people in this chapter were the same. They could look at Jesus and all of the evidence, and walk away not really being aware of what they'd seen.

But three times in this chapter, they had an epiphanies. Do you know what an epiphany is? It's a moment of revelation and insight that all of a sudden makes sense on everything that's happened up until that point. Three times in this chapter, all of a sudden their eyes were opened, and they were able to not only see the evidence but also make sense of everything that had happened up until that point - in fact, everything in their lives, in the world.

Three examples:

While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' " Then they remembered his words. (Luke 24:4-8)

Then the two disciples who had been traveling to Emmaus, after spending quite a bit of time with Jesus:

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" (Luke 24:30-32)

Then the disciples:

He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms."

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:44-45)

The evidence is important, but it's never enough. At some point you need that moment in which not only do you see, but you really see and you believe.

Even if you're a Christian, you can have this experience. I mentioned Tim Keller's book The Reason for God. When Keller was being treated for thyroid cancer, he actually had time on his hands for the first time in his life. He picked up N.T. Wright's book The Resurrection of the Son of God, which is 740 pages. He even read the indices. He says that the book reenforced something for him:

There's no historically viable alternative explanation for the birth of the Christian Church than the fact that the early Christians thought they saw Jesus Christ and touched him and that he was raised from the dead. As I was reading it, I realized I was coming to greater certainty, and that when I closed the book, I said, at a time when it was very important to me to feel this way, I said, "He really really really did rise from the dead." And I said, "Well, didn't I believe that before?" Of course I believed it before—I defended it, and I think before I certainly would have died for that belief. But actually, there were still doubts in there, and the doubts were taken down 50 percent or something. I didn't even know they were there. And it was a wonderful experience It was both an intellectual and emotional experience: You're facing death, you're not sure you're going to get over the cancer. And the rigorous intellectual process of going through all the alternative explanations for how the Christian Church started, except the resurrection—none of them are even tenable. It was quite an experience.

You see that? Keller already believed, but his eyes were opened and he believed it even more. It became more real to him, more relevant to his life and to his cancer. Easter is hard to believe, but if you look at the evidence that will be a good start. But if you ask God to open your eyes, then God is in the business of doing so, and just like the people in this chapter, it will change everything.

Which leads me to the last thing I want to say:

What difference does it make if we believe it?

Simply, it makes all the difference in the world. Luke ends with the disciples finally getting it, finally seeing for the first time. Luke is part one of a two-part series of books. When Luke ends they get it; when Acts starts they turn the whole world upside down. Their lives were never the same. It changed everything from that point on.

Easter gives us hope. N.T. Wright says:

The message of the resurrection is that this world matters!...If Easter means that Jesus Christ is only raised in a spiritual sense - [then] it is only about me, and finding a new dimension in my personal spiritual life. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good news for the whole world - news which warms our hearts precisely because it isn't just about warming hearts.

Easter is good news for the whole world.

Even if you don't believe in Easter, you should want to, because it teaches us that everything sad will come untrue. Everything. As Dostoevsky says in The Brothers Karamazov:

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they've shed; and it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened.

Easter is hard to believe, but if you believe - when you believe - it changes everything.

Father, we read a story like the story of Easter, and we find it hard to believe. But we're in good company. Those who experienced these events found it hard to believe as well.

But Easter is the great reversal. When our eyes are opened, we see it as the climax of history, the event through which all of history, all of Scripture, all of life, makes sense. So I pray that you would open our eyes, that we would believe. I pray that even those of us who've believed before would have our eyes opened to see it again. And seeing it again, may it turn our worlds upside down and draw us to you. We pray in the name of our risen Lord, Amen.