I’m sure most of you have attended a funeral, perhaps even recently.
If given the choice, most of us would rather go to a birthday party than to a funeral! But Solomon advises against it. Notice what he writes in Ecclesiastes 7:1-4: “A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart. Frustration is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.”
A funeral is better than a party! Why? Because death and sorrow can give us a more meaningful perspective on life than laughter can. Solomon was not a depressed melancholic; he didn’t live a gloomy, morbid life. On the contrary: In Proverbs he wrote about the necessity of laughter, a cheerful heart, etc. Even in Ecclesiastes he says life’s bottom line is to enjoy all of life as God’s gift.
But here Solomon suggests the sight of the dead in the house of mourning is better than a party because it causes us to think of our own end. There is a time to laugh; but there is also a time to mourn. We need times of mourning because the more we’re reminded of death, the more seriously we will consider our own destiny. Solomon’s message to us?
Let death be your teacher!