Ecclesiastes 7:1-2 - Perspective on death makes life important
Yesterday, I summarized Ecclesiastes 7, so today I am going to going to break it down a bit more, as each verse causes pause on its own.
 1 A good name is better than fine perfume,
      and the day of death better than the day of birth.
This starts out in a rather interesting way. Back in those days, perfume wasn’t simply something we wore to smell nice, but because people didn’t want to stink. In other words, a good name is more important than making sure you don’t stink, because if your character stinks, then who cares how good you smell?
 1 A good name is better than fine perfume,
      and the day of death better than the day of birth.
This has a similar juxtaposition for me. On the day of birth, you enter the world without a blemish; when you die, your body will decompose… which stinks, making it sound like it’s better to be dead or better to become a rotten corpse than to live… and yet how else are we to acquire a good name, but by living? Well, for the person who loves God, death is our entry into His eternal presence, whereas birth into this world is our entry into a world of sin. Clearly, God’s presence is better… but don’t go out and kill yourselves to get there, because that would blemish your good name, and a good name is better than fine perfume. But just as you shouldn’t value the riches of this life (such as fine perfume) too much, nor should you value your life itself, because it’s nothing compared to what you will have in Heaven whey you die.
What sounds morbid in verse 1 is therefore profoundly true. He goes on…
 2 It is better to go to a house of mourning
      than to go to a house of feasting,
      for death is the destiny of every man;
      the living should take this to heart.
Again this sounds almost morbid, but understand that he is merely using the words that we have put to things. Contrary to betraying a death wish out of hatred for life or perverted desire for pain or suffering, this points out the positive feelings we associate with parties and fun (feasting) vs. the negative feelings we associate with death (mourning). He isn’t saying that mourning itself is better but that going to the house where the mourning is is better, because there you can celebrate the life of someone who has gone to Heaven; feasting on the other hand is more typically spent eating and ignoring the eternal.
Death is in fact our destiny… not fate, but destiny. I find that choice of word interesting, because fate cannot be helped… you have no choice in your fate; destiny however has an element of choice in it. Your choice for God, as reflected in your choice to listen to Him, obey Him, and live in purity for Him, will lead you to Heaven; your choice against God will lead you to Hell. And so while dying is your fate, your choice of death (i.e., your destination, Heaven or Hell) is your destiny.
Going home to live with God is our real prize, and this life all about that. All that we do is leading to it. All that we teach our children is leading to their death one day… so raise them in the ways of the Lord, that they not depart from them. I would rather be celebrating the entry of my loved ones into Heaven, knowing they are secure than to go their 50th wedding anniversary, believing this life might be the only happiness they could ever know… just to die into nothingness.
And I agree that we should take this to heart, because it is our perspective on death that will give our life meaning. Suicide bombers have a perspective on death that leads to killing innocents to earn glory in Heaven. People living in physical pain will view death as the absence of pain, and so welcome the relief. God however wants us to see death as our time to go and be with Him forever, and life our path toward getting there. It is our death that gives our life its meaning.
So, what meaning does your life have?