This One is For the Byrds (Ecclesiastes 3:1-15)

What is the shortest verse in the NT? This is a good one if you say, I just can’t memorize Bible verses I bet you can get this one. Hardest part will be memorizing the address. John 11:35, Jesus wept.

Now why did Jesus weep? It’s a story about his friend Lazarus. You’ve maybe heard of him as the guy that Jesus rose from the dead, after being in there for a bit. So long that in the KJV they say, “Lord by this time he stinketh.”

Jesus said, “Lazarus come out of that tomb!” And he did. But before all of that Lazarus’ two sisters gave Jesus a bit of a guilt trip. If you’d been here my brother wouldn’t have died. He sees and feels and experiences all the pain of death in this moment. He tells them that he’s going to raise him from the dead, and that this happened so that they could see God’s glory.

And all of that we’d expect. He’s God. He can do that stuff. But there is this strange little verse in there. Jesus wept. Now why in the world did he do that? Why weep in this moment when you know it isn’t going to last very long at all?

I mean if a little kid breaks a toy, one that you can easily fix, and she’s crying and whimpering and her little world is just crushed because Barbie’s head came off…but you know full well that you can just snap that thing back on…you don’t join in the crying. Why does Jesus weep?

Hang on to that question. If I do my job I think you’ll be able to answer it by the end.

We’re going to be in Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 today. Here is another quiz question for you. What is the #1 hit with the oldest lyrics? I’ll give you a hint…it’s about time. Another hint...we’re going to read those lyrics today.

Ecclesiastes 3:1–15 ESV

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.

Do you know the answer now? Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds. Almost all of that song is pulled from this section in Ecclesiastes. In that song they end it with saying

“A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late...”

And what they mean there by peace is the absence of conflict…the end of wars…world peace. But that’s not quite what it means in the text, we’ll get there in a bit.

We are in a new section here of Ecclesiastes. You aren’t going to see those words “striving after the wind” or “vanity” as much. This little poem is about time and what do we do with it.

It’s a beautiful poem. The word time appearing twenty-eight times and with fourteen pairs. You’ll notice that those are all divisible by 7…a biblical number of perfection.

There is something else to notice about this poem. It begins with a time to be born and a time to die. Okay, we don’t get to pick those. It’s the beginning and the end. It’s all of life. That’s what he is doing here....he’s using these little words to bookend our whole life under the sun. And then he’s going to give all of these examples.

And they are opposites. Not necessarily good and bad, but opposites—positives and negatives. They don’t seem to be in any chronological order or anything but it’s just the whole of our life. All of the decisions that we have to make.

One way that we could look at this is to make us kind of passive in all of this. There are times when things will inevitably occur. That the times and seasons give us certain things and we have to know how to deal with them.

But that’s not quite how wisdom literature works. It’s close though. What it is saying is that we need to know what season we are in, and respond accordingly.

What happens if it’s December and a farmer decides he’d like to get an early jump on his crops and so he goes out and plants while things are still freezing? He’s not going to have any growth. Why? Because it’s not the time for planning doofus.

Or your spouses aunt just died. That’s probably not the time to tell a knock-knock joke. That’s a time to mourn, not a time to laugh. Wisdom means being able to identify which season you are in and then to act accordingly.

We could look at each of these individually but I don’t think that’s as much his point. I’m not saying they don’t have meaning and that there isn’t value in analyzing each of them…but I really think it’s poetry here. He’s pulling at various things—maybe even some stuff that rhymes here or there—just to fit into his poem about time.

He is taking all the different things of life and noting how there isn’t anything you can really hang your hat on. You aren’t able to land on any of these. If you’re in a time of dancing…well, it’s not going to always be that…there is going to be a time of mourning just around the corner and if you are wise—you’ll mourn in a season of mourning.

This is part of what he is saying in verse 9-12. He is saying there is order in the world, but it’s not an order that we can perceive. So what does it matter if there is order. Yes, everything is beautiful in its time but we aren’t very smart at knowing what time it is.

I love this quote by Andy Bernard from The Office…it’s one of the last episodes and he says “I wish we could know we were living in the good times when we were living in them.” That’s a little of what the Quester is saying here.

That bit about “eternity into man’s heart” is both something great and something like a frustrating burden. It means we can’t be satisfied and we’re always longing for something eternal. We can’t really know and see what God is doing very clearly. That’s what the end of verse 11 is saying.

There is a time for everything. That means that in your life right now there is a fitting time for something…you are in a particular season. Do you know what it is? Do you know how to utilize it for the glory of God? And it can be confusing…because some parts might be weeping and other parts laughter.

Verse 12-13…be joyful and do good as long as you live…take pleasure in life when you can. This is God’s gift to man.

College…one foot on the floor.

Proverbs 5....be intoxicated....lose yourself…don’t have one foot on the floor.

And I think that is what Solomon is telling us. Be fully in the season that you are in.