Breaking Bowls

Don’t know if you have ever seen the TV show called Six Feet Under. It was a show about a family that own and operated a funeral home. Each episode started with a short vignette in which someone would die. The character that died in the opening vignette would become the body at the family funeral home for the rest of the episode. There are about six main characters on the show.

However, the way that the show was shot, written and produced it made sure that there was one main character that was above all the others and in the forefront of everything that happen to all the other characters. That main character was death. Death was at the forefront of every show. It made the show very challenging to watch. It confronts you with something that we spend most of our lives attempting to ignore. The reason I bring this up is because this is very much like the book of Ecclesiastes. The book’s main character is death. The book constantly brings up the issue of death. Which is a reason why the book is so difficult to read. With this in mind – that death is the destiny of us all – let us take a look at Ecclesiastes chapter twelve.

12:1 “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.’” The very first thing that the master teacher says is to remember your creator. Remember the thing that keeps you alive. Remember not just God in the general sense but remember the specific gift that he gave that allows you to be alive. Remember your creator’s gift of life. One should remember the creator before the days of trouble. That phrase “days of trouble” is a Hebrew idiom for old age. This is not about trouble like bad times. It is when things get difficult in your old age. In the ancient world there were no hearing aid or eye glasses. There are not things that make up for the slow deterioration of the body. When you got old in the ancient world things got really hard. Aging is not for the faint of heart. So in the days of your youth remember the one who gave you life. Enjoy your life because you will get older and not be able to do some of things you can do now. 

12:2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain. This is not a reference to the end of the world. It is a statement about the eyes growing dim. Remember the beauty that is around. There will come a day when you might not see very well. Enjoy the beauty around you now. Don’t take your sight for granted. “The clouds will return after the rain” – a reference that as you get old it is harder to stay well. New “clouds” seem to keep showing up all the time and this is what aging can feel like.

12:3 when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim; “Keepers of the house”, some suggest, is a metaphor for hands. So remember God and his gift of life before the day that your hands begin to tremble. “The grinder cease”, some suggest, is a metaphor for teeth. So remember God and his gift of life before your teeth fall out. “Those looking through windows”, some suggest, is another reference to eyes and vision. The master teacher is using the physical appearance of an old house to that of the human body. Remember your creator before these things happen.

12:4 when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when people rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint; The doors here some suggest is a reference to the ears. As one gets older their ears can “close” thus making it hard to hear. “When people rise” – is a reference to those that can’t really hear the birds. You just get up at the same time as the birds because you can’t sleep. Remember your creator before this happens.

12:5 when people are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets; when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags itself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about the streets. Before the almond tree blossoms is probably a reference to hair. Just Goggle up a picture of an almond tree and you will probably grasp the metaphor. “The grasshopper drags itself along” . . .well. . this is a euphemism for a male part of the body. It is dragging itself along and desire no longer is stirred. Let’s just say that if they had a little blue pill in ancient times the “grasshopper” would hop a lot better. Moving on. In the ancient world there were no newspapers. If you wanted to let people know that someone had died you would often pay professional mourners that roamed the streets. These professional mourners would go around from community to community telling the news. This would be another difficulty in passing – that you die and others make money on your passing. Remember your creator and his gift of life before this happens.  

12:6 Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the wheel broken at the well, This is a very powerful image of life just coming to an end. The “bowl breaks”, “the cord is cut”, “the wheel is broken”. Stuff just breaks and there is nothing you can do to stop it. The master teacher then ends his poem with the words he started his book with – meaningless. The word translated as meaningless is a bit unfortunate because word means something more like vapor. Thus life is not meaningless it is like vapor. Here for a moment and then gone.

The mater teacher of Ecclesiastes is using this last chapter and bit of poetry to offer an invitation. He is inviting us to remember the one thing on which everything else depends. Everything else in your life depends upon that one gift of life that God gave you. There is an urgency to the master teachers invitation. We are urged to remember God’s gift of life while young and not just young but do so right now becasue you do not know when death may come. Life is like vapor. Here for a moment and then gone. Connect with God and remember his gift of life before the bowl breaks and before the cord is broken. Why the urgency?

Sometime back I had to get something out of my garage. I walked into the garage and hit the light switch but the light did not come on. There are no windows so I had to open the garage door to let in some light. It is kind of hard to find stuff in the dark. Well, changing the light in the garage is kind of a hassle. You have to move the car out of the way. You have to get the ladder out. You have to take out the old light and put in a new light. It is just a hassle. Instead of changing the light I just went and get what I need and finished the project at hand. Then later that same day, after the sun had gone down, I needed something else from the garage. So I when back out to the garage and hit the switch and nothing happened. I had forgotten to change the lightbulb. It was pitch black. I couldn’t find my flash light, I couldn’t change the bulb and I couldn’t get what I needed.

The time to change the lightbulb would have been in the daylight before the darkness comes. While it is still light out was the right time to make sure that the light source is connected. If the light is connected then when the dark time comes – it does not matter. It just has to be connected before the darkness comes. Is it possible to change a bulb in the dark? Maybe but it is much more difficult than changing a bulb when there is plenty of daylight. The master teacher is brutally honest. He is inviting us to connect with God who is beyond all of the created vapor of life. What he offers us is a choice. We can choose to try and do all we can to manage and hold on to our vapor or we can connect with the creator who created the vapor and is beyond the vapor. The choice is ours to make yet do it before the bowl breaks and the silver cord is broken.