For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. – Ecclesiastes 12:14

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 7, 2016): Ecclesiastes 12

M*A*S*H’s “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” remains the gold standard of T.V. Series sendoffs. The episode, five times the length of a typical episode, summed up everything that we loved about M*A*S*H. It had all the one-liners, and yet with a serious side. The characters got what they had wanted all along, out of Korea, and yet there was a melancholy sentiment at all that they would be leaving behind. Korea and their fans would miss them. And while it was time for the series to end, the cast would miss their fans. It was what an ending was supposed to be. It summed up all that had gone before and reinforced the reasons why their fans had grown to love the show.

I wasn’t a fan at the beginning. In fact, the show was on a short list of television shows my parents (I was young and living at home at the time the series started) would not allow me to watch. But by the time it ended, it was one of the shows that my wife and I sat down once a week to watch together. And it was together that we watched the tear-inducing final episode and said our good-byes to Hawkeye, Beej, Colonel Potter, Major Winchester, Klinger, Hot Lips, Father Mulcahy and rest of the cast of the show. M*A*S*H lasted much longer than the actual Korean conflict, but it succeeded in bringing meaning to a war that most of us had forgotten. And the finale brought meaning to the series.

It is what a good ending should do. There might not be a better chapter in the Hebrew Bible than the last chapter of Ecclesiastes. It brings us full circle and finally instills meaning in a book that declares from its beginning that life is meaningless. What in the early parts of the book is described to be like a vapor, is now solid. Meaning has replaced the meaningless cries of the teacher. Purpose has been substituted for the randomness experienced “under the sun.” Solomon does not echo the wisdom of his day and stress that we must remember that we must die – that there is indeed a time for everything under heaven. He tells us to remember the Creator. And know that the Creator sees everything that happens “under the sun;” that he is the one who will bring the deeds committed on the earth to its appropriate conclusion.

And that is something of which we need to be continually reminded. Life “under the sun” does not take place in a vacuum. It occurs in the presence of God, who made us and will bring everything to its appropriate conclusion.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 12