Kris Kristofferson (who died last year at the age of 88) was one of the greatest performers of the twentieth century. He achieved the distinction of having written a number one hit that made it into the Billboard Hot 100 and that was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. But Kris Kristofferson was not the only one to achieve that amazing success. There was another. And that leads me to my question for you this morning: Who was that other one?
The answer may surprise you. It was none other than King Solomon. And the hit that made it to the top of the charts is the Bible passage we have read in this morning’s service, as it is found in the old King James Version: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven…”
Those words became the lyrics of a song composed in 1959 by Pete Seeger and that became popularly known as “Turn, turn, turn”. The initial release was sung by Seeger himself, later to be followed successively by the Limeliters, the Byrds, and Judy Collins—and each one a top hit in its own right. There was even a German translation sung by film legend Marlene Dietrich and accompanied by Burt Bacharach.
It seemed to me that this passage, with its repeated references to time, is one that we might do well to read this morning, as we stand on the cusp of another year. This is a point where many of us are especially aware of the passage of time, as we look back over the past twelve months and attempt to peer ahead into the next.
What were some of the high points of this past year for you? Some of its lows? What did you do that was different? What remained pretty much unchanged? From a world point of view, here are some of the events that have dominated the headlines this year:
· Donald Trump radiates chaos and turmoil in the first year of his second presidency in the United States
· A new Liberal minority government under Mark Carney is elected in our own country of Canada
· Civil war continues in Sudan, with over twelve million people forced to abandon their homes—the largest and fastest displacement crisis in the world
· Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has now claimed more than a million lives
· In Burma’s civil war, more than 400,000 people have been displaced, with more than a million in need of humanitarian assistance
· The Roman Catholic Church appoints its first American pope in the person of Leo XIV
· The Toronto Bluejays come within a hair’s breadth of winning the World Series
· A ceasefire is proclaimed in Gaza, but only after claiming more than 70,000 lives, mainly of innocent people
· Over $100 million worth in jewels are stolen from the Louvre in Paris
· Sixteen people are shot dead on Bondi Beach while celebrating Hannukah, including a Holocaust survivor and a ten year-old child
Day by day
Now all of those events I’ve listed are on a national or international scale. But Solomon’s interests in the verses we have before us are on a very different level. They are not headline-grabbing affairs. They have a much more personal, human focus. By and large they are all events that you and I can relate to in the course of daily life—the kind of things some might think about posting on their Facebook page: birth and death, planting and uprooting, building and taking down, weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing, finding and losing, seeking and giving up, tearing and mending, speaking and keeping silent…
And while it may all seem very ordinary and unspectacular, there is a beauty to this rhythm of life, to this predictability that makes so much of everyday living possible. Even though winter has hardly begun, I look forward to the coming of spring, when the bulbs I planted in the fall will poke through the earth and come into bloom. I look forward to celebrating birthdays with members of my family. I look forward to next Christmas, even though the current Christmas season won’t be officially over for another eight days!
At the same time there is also a sadness. We are forced to recognize that it is an unavoidable part of life in this world that good things will come to an end. And, as much as we might want to, it is beyond your power or mine to extend them. In a few days’ time we’ll be dragging our Christmas trees out to the side of the road and our neighbour’s inflatable reindeer will lie collapsed on the frozen ground. More seriously, Solomon reminds us that there is a time to weep and a time to mourn—that family and friends who are with us this Christmas may not be here to gather around our table when Christmas rolls around next year.
Now I don’t want to put you on a downer during this festive season or ruin your Christmas by making you think about sad things. So let me ask you, what are some positive lessons we can glean from these verses? Allow me to offer a couple of suggestions: We can seek to embrace each of the seasons of life in faith, with the assurance that somehow—and as often as not mysteriously—God has a purpose behind them all. Moreover we can trust that through all of life’s ups and downs, our gracious Lord holds each of us firmly in his all-powerful hand.
But far more importantly we need to recognize that, as stirringly eloquent and timeless as Solomon’s words may be, they do not tell the whole story. Ecclesiastes opens with the doleful cry, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity…” And repeatedly Solomon confesses that he is looking at life from a perspective “under the sun”. Over the course of the eleven chapters of Ecclesiastes we are confronted by this expression no fewer than twenty-seven times. And so we need to take warning: that what Solomon is giving us in these verses is only a partial picture. It offers us only a purely earthly perspective. And for the full story we need to look elsewhere in Scripture…
The day everything changed
So let me read to you now from those famous opening words of John’s gospel, words often read at this time of year:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
I cannot read those words without a sense of amazement, without feeling chills tingling down my spine. John invites us to gaze not just around us like Solomon, but upwards into the vast and limitless expanse of the heavens—and with awe and amazement to ponder the God who created it all. And then to realize that God, who holds the universe in the palm of his hand, whom the Psalms describe as riding across the highest heavens and thundering with a mighty voice, has set his love on the likes of you and me.
This love is nothing like Solomon’s cool observation, musing on his subjects from the lofty security of his throne. While Solomon looks downwards from the aloofness of his palace to observe the everyday affairs of his kingdom, the Son of God fully embraces our human experience. He takes upon himself our very flesh—becomes a helpless fetus in a mother’s womb, experiences hunger and thirst, temptation and sorrow, misunderstanding, betrayal, suffering, abandonment and finally even death itself.
Years before, on the bank of the Jordan River, John the Baptist had pointed to Jesus with the words, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Those words may have seemed puzzling at the time. But it would be on the cross that Jesus would experience even death itself. Indeed he would experience not only our physical death, but he would take upon himself our spiritual deadness, our deadness to God.
And so it was, that a generation later, looking back on the cross the apostle Paul could write, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) What Paul recognized was that, when Jesus hung dying on the cross, he was not dying for any sin that he had committed, but for your sins and for mine and for those of all who turn to him in faith. He was taking upon himself our death, so that you and I might share fully in his life.
The day we await
All of which brings me to a third passage of Scripture, this time from the vision that the Lord gave to John in the Book of Revelation:
Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’
He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’
He said to me: ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children…’ (Revelation 21:1-7)
When Jesus died on the cross and rose again, he broke the endless cycle of birth and death, planting and uprooting, searching and giving up, keeping and throwing away. The eternity that God has set in our hearts has become for us a reality, a real and ever-present hope as we open our lives to him.
I’m no prophet and I don’t dare predict what we’ll have to look back on a year from now. On the other hand, I have little doubt that, much as Solomon has described it, over the course of this coming year of 2026, we will see its share of births and deaths, planting and uprooting, killing and healing. Yet I want to challenge you to put it into its larger context, the full picture of God’s eternal and glorious purpose for this world. May your goal for 2026 be that of the apostle Paul:
I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[ Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:8-16)
So amid all the round of life allow me to challenge you keep your eyes fixed on our glorious Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit to press on in the unshakeable hope that God has placed before us in him!
