Aging: A Christian Perspective (Sermon Series : The Christian Family) Sunday, July 14, 2002 Communion Sunday Dr. Victor D. Pentz Senior Minister Scripture Lesson: Ecclesiastes 12:1-8 When I turned fifty the big 5-0 someone sent me a birthday card. On the outside the card asked, What s the best thing about turning fifty? When I opened it, the inside was blank. The comedian George Burns was once asked, What s the best thing about being in your nineties? He replied, The lack of peer pressure. Psychologists say that when we re young we laugh about sex. When we get older, we laugh about getting older. We laugh to keep from crying. Solomon did not age gracefully. In his mid-fifties, he was already a bitter old man. Listen to his melancholy musings: Man s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Ultimately, Solomon says, the only difference between our pets and us is that we have two legs and they have four. A hundred years from now, only an expert will be able to tell the difference between their bones and our bones. In fact, Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, animals have it better than we do, because God played a cruel joke on us humans by (and these are his words) placing eternity in our hearts, but only a few short years in our bodies. What s more, we don t know how long we will live. None of us knows how long our ball of yarn is. The end could come today or tomorrow or years from now. So the question becomes: how then ought we to live? I d like for us to look at Ecclesiastes 12 and walk slowly through this text. You re going to want to have your Bible open as we reflect on the metaphors in each of these verses. We will begin with Ecclesiastes 12:1-8: Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, 1
[In what season of the year does light grow dark? Winter the author is saying that old age is the winter of life.] and the clouds return after the rain; [In other words, in old age life is one problem after another. Then in verse 3, Solomon talks about his body.] when the keepers of the house tremble, [The keepers of the house are the hands the hands begin to get shaky in old age the keepers of the house tremble.] and the strong men stoop, [Which are our most powerful limbs? Our legs the strong men stoop.] when the grinders cease because they are few, [This is an easy metaphor to decipher... the grinders that cease because they are few are the teeth so keep on flossing now.] and those looking through the windows grow dim; [The eyes grow dim.] when the doors to the street are closed [This is a Hebraism for constipation, according to scholars.] and the sound of grinding fades; [You can t grind out the work like you used to.] when men rise up at the sound of birds, [The aged often suffer from insomnia but the birdsong points up another cruel fact of age.] but all their songs grow faint; [Age is accompanied by loss of hearing.] when men are afraid of heights [fear of falling and breaking a hip] and of dangers in the streets; [Have you ever found yourself driving behind a very elderly couple and gotten frustrated because they were moving so slowly? Don t honk you re all going to be there someday.] when the almond tree blossoms [Almond trees in full bloom are snowy white.] and the grasshopper drags himself along and desire no longer is stirred. [That s why we have Viagra to combat the sexual dysfunction common in aging.] Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets. [Now come various pictures of death.] Remember him [your Creator] before the sil ver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. Everything is meaningless! Lord by your grace we have been very successful people. We have harnessed the atom. We have flown through space. But with all we have accomplished, death remains the one unyielding barrier. Lord, prepare us for this sacrament, which Jesus gave to us as his last supper before he died. Help us to receive the hope and good news awaiting us at this 2
Communion table. In Jesus name. Amen. The denial of death is a huge growth industry these days. We ve seen this fact illustrated in the rumors surrounding the recent death of baseball great Ted Williams. There were allegations that a family member had taken his body to a cryogenics facility. I happened to turn on Good Morning America last week and saw a segment where they interviewed people who have signed contracts to have themselves preserved in liquid oxygen. The cost is $120,000 for your whole body and a mere $50,000 for your head alone. I have to confess that my first thought was, What a scam. Why didn t I think of that? Look, I ve got this refrigerator back here we take Visa or Master Card. But on another level, my heart went out to these people. One man said, Well, maybe when I die someday, I ll fade to black then 200 years later I ll wake up again. He said, I m not looking for immortality; I want pre-selected dying. I want to be able to decide when I die. A lot of us kid ourselves when it comes to dying, don t we? Whenever my brother sees a gray hair appear on his chest, he plucks it out life is rather painful for him these days. Facing the reality of aging and death can be painful, unless we do four things. God will not let us forget our mortality. We have just read of the grim progression of aging into death in Ecclesiastes; we are also told in Hebrews 9:27, it is appointed for men once to die, and after that comes the judgment. So the first thing we must do is face the fact of death. I remember once taking my birth year of 1948 and then adding to it my probable lifespan; I am a nonsmoker and a runner, so I estimate I might live eighty years. I figured out that I won t be around much beyond 2028, and that s only if I last to a ripe old age. You might want to try that exercise. The Psalmist said, Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. We must face our mortality. But in the meanwhile, until our death comes, we should be asking, How ought we to live? Some folks read what Solomon wrote and say, We need to lay low and and take it easy. Play it as safe as you can for as long as you can. In fact, the message we should receive from this passage is just the opposite. In light of the brevity of life, we should live moment by moment adventurously for God. Just skip back one chapter before our Scripture passage. In Chapter 11, verse 1, Solomon writes, Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Solomon used to love to send out ships. He was an early version of the venture capitalist, who would send his ships out on risky and expensive commercial ventures. Then he would sit on pins and needles for weeks and months, until one day on the horizon he would glimpse his ships returning laden with such treasure, as I Kings 10:22 tells us, as gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks. Because life is short, seize the day! Carpe diem! Get your hands on those apes and peacocks out there! Take a big bite of life and let it dribble down your chin. Too many Christians I know remind me of the poem I once read about a man who never kissed the girls or ever tried. And in the end life insurance was denied for they said because he never lived, he never really died. Jesus said much the same thing: He who tries to keep his life will lose it and he who loses his life for my sake and gospels, the same will find it. Jesus called the man who played it safe and built bigger and bigger barns a fool, while the widow who gave her last penny brought a smile to his face. While traveling in the Holy Land, I once saw a statue of the early church father St. Jerome. I was surprised to see a human skull tied to his ankle; according to accounts, he walked around thus every day. Believe it or not, it was for a positive purpose. He wanted a constant reminder of the preciousness of each and every moment of life in service to God. So cast your bread on the waters not with just yourself in mind. Lose yourself in love and service. 3
After facing the fact of death and giving our life away in service to God, the third thing we must do is prepare ourselves for eternity. Today we take great pride in our tennis game, or in our golf swing. In the middle ages people cultivated what they called ars moriendi, the art of dying. Religious groups bragged over how well they died. John Wesley said, We Methodists die well. To which I m sure the Presbyterians replied, Oh yeah, well watch us. We have predestination on our side. Unlike today, cancer was the death of choice back then. Cancer gives one time to die well. You can forgive your enemies, pay off your debts, bless your grandchildren, and say long goodbyes to those you love. The beautiful book Tuesdays with Morrie is about a man who dies very, very well. It says a lot about us today that we prefer to die instantaneously so that death is over before we know what s coming. But friends, it s only when we know how to die that we truly begin to know how to live. Do you know where you are going to spend eternity someday? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? Ecclesiastes says, Remember your Creator When? When you re old and your body is falling apart? No In the days of your youth. In your teen years, your twenties, thirties, forties. Are you young people here this morning fully committed followers of Jesus? From to the top of your head to the bottom of your socks? I used to think it would be so great to know the exact moment I would die. I would party my brains out right up until five minutes before, then I d say, Lord, I want you in my life. And I d make it under the wire to salvation. But that s no way to live. Christ brings more joy and fulfillment while we are alive than anything in the world. In the eighth grade, Brett Foster went in for a routine physical before football season. They found a lump on his leg. The lump turned out to be cancerous and necessitated the amputation of his leg. Outfitted with an artificial leg, Brent played high school baseball, basketball, and tennis. He was elected student body president and graduated valedictorian. Brent entered Harvard as part of the class of 1997. During his freshman year, tumors were found in Brent s lungs. Eleven surgeries followed. And then the cancer went into Brent s bones. He wrote these words: Solomon s words from Ecclesiastes often ring in my ears (along with the other ringing noises I constantly hear from chemotherapy damage): Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come For me the days of trouble came early Although my illness will appear a tragedy to the world around me, those who know God will understand the truth which he brought to us himself by entering human history in the person of Jesus Christ. As recorded in his Word, all good gifts are from above and all the good I will miss in an extended earthly life are but shadows of the real thing. Real life begins with God. I find the concluding words of C. S. Lewis s Chronicles of Narnia very fitting, Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. I hope that all who read this will remember their Creator, before the days of trouble come, so that when forced to confront the horrible abyss of death, as everyone inevitably will, He will be able to lead you back to safety, sanity, and an eternity of glory. Brent was forced to leave Harvard in the spring of his sophomore year, and later that summer he went home to be with the Lord. Where is Brent today? He is sitting at the table with Jesus Christ, where we will sit as believers one day, in a place where our questions are answered, our burdens are lifted, our pain is ended, and the joy 4
goes on and on and on. I have a friend who says there are certain molten moments in life. This Communion can be a molten moment for us: a time when we join our will with God s will to create a new direction and a new future for our lives. The veil between this world and the next is very thin during Communion. Let s have fellowship with our Lord. 5
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