Tuesday, November 12, 2024

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READ: Ecclesiastes 9

² Everything is the same for everyone: There is one fate for the righteous and the wicked, for the good and the bad, for the clean and the unclean, for the one who sacrifices and the one who does not sacrifice. As it is for the good, so also it is for the sinner; as it is for the one who takes an oath, so also for the one who fears an oath. Ecclesiastes 9:2 (CSB)

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For those of you reading this on the 12^th yesterday was Remembrance Day. A day to feel the overwhelming sacrifices of millions of soldiers who fought for causes that they swore their lives to. 

Many of my relatives were pacifists. Some even gave their lives because of it, refusing to pick up weapons in the Russian Revolution when the Bolsheviks swept over their prosperous farmland. Both my great-great-grandmother and great-great-grandfather were murdered in their home while the children scattered for safety. 

Mahatma Gandhi was a pacifist too; he was also assassinated. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wasn’t a pacifist but he was hanged just 21 days before Hitler killed himself.

Life is chock full of disparity but death isn’t; death is the great equalizer. It is an equalizer because a tyrant will die on the same day that an infant is lost. One life is long, and another is short, but both end in death. 

Now, given that death comes for us all, as they say, one could easily embrace nihilistic frivolity or sullen despondency, I suppose. Sacrifice your life for the bettering of another, or party your life away for the enjoyment of precisely yourself, in the end, death awaits. 

One person numbs herself to the impending shadow, while the other placates himself in service and despite that odd dilemma life, however brief or lengthy, has meaning. How can that be? 

There are several ways. First, every life, regardless of how short, is inextricably connected to countless other lives. Connectedness is felt powerfully in relationships, but only when the relationship becomes disconnected do you feel the full weight of what it means. Second, life has meaning because life is eternal. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has written eternity on our hearts. What an unusual thought. When you think about it, even the irreligious, materialist believes in a sort of eternity. Our DNA carries on through children or is at least shared among relatives. Our bodies decompose and give new life, atoms are recycled back into creation and in that way, they persevere. And most people will leave behind a memory of their existence – even if most memories are lost over time to history. 

Regardless of the worldview, there is a continuity to life and that gives it meaning. 

And then there is the divine imprint on us which is the most important thing of all because that imprint is not diminished or embellished by the length of one’s life, it is a gift for every human soul. 

So perhaps it is not death but God’s image which imparts meaning that is the great equalizer. After all, animals die and they don’t share the same intrinsic value that human beings do. Value denotes meaning, the greater the meaning, the greater the value. Every human life is then filled with meaning and immeasurable value because that is the way God made things. 

I think that is the reason we should enjoy life. Far from being futility compounding futility, life is meaning compounding meaning. Those who are given enough breath to become conscious of that meaning should take time to enjoy it.