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A Funeral Sermon: A Time for Every Season Under Heaven


I recently preached this sermon at the funeral of my brother-in-law, designated herein as "V."  I've taken out a lot of personal stuff.  The text is that famous first periocope in Ecclesiastes 3.

        Many of us here remember the ‘60’s – how can we forget them!  What a time!  As we read the first lesson from Ecclesiastes, I’m sure many if not all of us were reminded of the Bob Dylan song made famous by The Byrds, “Turn, Turn, Turn”….

As the passage says, we live in seasons, and all our seasons have a purpose, and every purpose is under heaven.  God sees it all, he knows about it all, and he is ultimately seeking our good in it all – as hard as that may be to believe at times.  It’s easy enough to see how our birth was good, but death is not a good thing: it’s a curse brought upon us by the sin of Adam and Eve.  But, however or whenever our death comes, God is still good and He is still watching over his purpose under heaven….

But let’s focus for a few minutes on how the passage starts out: “a time to be born, and a time to die.”  This speaks of a number of things, doesn’t it.  For every one of us, there was a season and a time for our birth.  And for every one of us, there is a season and time under heaven for our death.  As the Psalmist says, “my times are in your hands.”  To us, this is all a mystery.  There may be times when we ask, “Why was I born?”  And we can certainly have lots of questions about death: “Why now?  Why like this?” 

Yet, somehow, God has a purpose for our birth and even for our death.  And in it all, whatever our questions, we know he purposes good.  God did not bring you into this world to do you harm but good.  The apostle James says in the first chapter of his letter in the NT:

“God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. …  16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”  In other words, God is good through and through. 

In this fallen world, bad things can happen to us and we ourselves can do bad things.  But that is not God’s ultimate purpose for bringing us into this world. 

In fulfilling his purpose he also brought us into this world at just the right time; He does that with everybody – He did it with his own Son, as the Bible says, “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son.”  As for the time of our death, we could say God gives us some leeway.  Going back to Jesus, consider his death.  Jesus died because wicked people killed him.  They didn’t have to, but God let them do what they wanted to do.  But here’s the mystery; Jesus spoke of his death as the hour appointed for him by his Father; the hour that he would save his people from their sins.  Somehow, in spite of leaving people leeway to do what they want, God’s purpose for our salvation, under heaven, was still done. 

This can be a comfort to us.  The time of V.’s death was no accident.  It was no chance.  It wasn’t just because COVID was around.  There was a good purpose under heaven for it; and it was the hour that our Father in heaven had long appointed.  It was simply time for V. to come home.  God is good; He’s been good in giving V. to us, and he is good in taking V. home.

Now this is a loving family, and I cannot imagine any of us wants to find ourselves on the last day, when Jesus returns, and raises us from the dead and gives us our bodies back again, and brings us before his judgment – I can’t imagine any of us wants to find ourselves alive on that day and we not be together, because this one or that one is on the wrong side of Jesus, the Judge.  There is a time for each of us to die.  Then will follow the judgment – there’s a time for that too.  And Jesus promises us that, if we will lose our lives for his sake, we can be on the right side of his judgment.  Jesus calls us today to give up ourselves in this life, so we can have our true selves back, forever; and that all who believe in him, raised back to life, can look each other in the eye again, and shake each other’s hands again, and hear each other’s voices again.  What a gift.  God purposes this blessing for us all.  He wants us to see each other again.  But what we do with our lives, and what we do with Jesus, is up to us.

[image is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TheByrdsTurnTurnTurn.jpg - used only to illustrate the recording mentioned in this article above.]

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