Blessed are Those who Mourn (Ecclesiastes 7:1-8:1)

Who is like the wise?

Who knows the explanation of things?

I watch on quietly as a procession of hearses gradually take their place in the queue. They come in one way. They go out another. Their journeys ever cyclical, knowing they’ll be greeting these gates all over again tomorrow.

I watch on quietly as the suited come. They lift. They shuffle forward. They keep in step. They tend to the weighty dust within, as its final destination looms.

I watch on quietly as those gathered soberly follow. Cheeks hollowed out with the pain of grief, eyes glazed with tears, hearts etched with a thousand memories. Some beautiful. Some searingly painful. All tethered to this weighty dust in a box mounting the stairs.

And in that stark moment I see it. In that weighty instant I hear it. That wisdom is married to the one who mourns. That it is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of pleasure.

Not because it’s remotely enjoyable. Or comfortable. But because in that moment, the breath of life is before me. This fleeting vapour flashes before my eyes and I’m forced to consider how limited I am. How truly momentary my days are.

It’s sobering wisdom, grinding its way into my heart, that like every other creature, I am but dust on the earth. And in my fragility and futility, I am in desperate need of the Lord’s guiding and leading as to how to live during these cursory days before me.

It’s a stark shuddering reality that the coffin is indeed a better preacher than both the cot, and the celebration.

But this wisdom is also a shelter. Because as I heed it, it drives me forward to the One who has shattered the grave. It drives me forward to the one whom death could not hold. It drives me forward to the One who was utterly victorious over the stubborn stench of death that lingers from one generation to the next. It drives me forward to the One who brings life to all who come.

Who is like the wise? There is only One.

My heart is inclining more and more towards Him, as I see the precious everlasting shelter I have in Him.

To whom else shall we go? He has the words of eternal life.