Remember Your Creator

An old teacher leans forward. His hands are shaky now, and his eyes are tired. But his voice is warm. He looks at the young people gathered around him and says: I want to tell you something while you are still young.

We are at the end of the book of Ecclesiastes. Its writer, called the Teacher, has spent the whole book looking hard at life. He has tried work and pleasure, wealth and wisdom, and found that none of them can hold life still. Everything passes, like breath on a cold morning. Now, in his final chapter, he turns to the young. He has just told them to enjoy their youth, and to remember that God will judge how they live. And then he gives them his most important piece of advice.

“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.” Remember him now, the Teacher says, before the difficult days come, before the years arrive when you say, I don't enjoy life any more. Before the sun and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds come back after the rain. He is talking about getting old. And he paints it in a poem, like a picture of a great house slowly growing quiet. The keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men bend over. The women grinding grain stop, because there are only a few of them left. Those who look out of the windows see only dimly. The doors to the street are shut, and the sound of the mill grows faint.

The picture goes on. People wake at the first sound of a bird, but the songs grow soft. They are afraid of heights and of dangers in the street. The almond tree blossoms. The grasshopper drags itself along. And then the poem becomes even gentler, as it reaches the end of a life. Before the silver cord snaps, before the golden bowl is broken, before the jar is shattered at the spring and the wheel broken at the well. These are pictures of something precious coming to an end. And then: the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. The Teacher is not trying to frighten the young. He is telling them the truth, so they will not waste the bright years they have.

Then someone else seems to speak about the Teacher. Because he was wise, the passage says, he kept teaching people. He weighed and studied and arranged many proverbs, and he looked for just the right words, words that were true. The words of the wise are like goads, the pointed sticks farmers used to keep oxen moving, and like nails firmly fixed. They come from one Shepherd. Then a warning with a smile in it: “Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” And at last, the end of the whole book. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” For God will bring every deed into judgment, every hidden thing, good or bad.

Why the almond tree? In the land of Israel the almond is the first tree to blossom, flowering in late winter before its leaves appear. Its blossoms are white, or white touched with pink. Since ancient times, readers have taken the blossoming almond in this poem as a picture of white hair. Many have read the whole poem the same way: the trembling keepers as hands and arms, the few grinders as teeth, and the dim windows as failing eyes.

You'll find this poem in Ecclesiastes chapter twelve. An old teacher's last words to the young: remember your Creator now, and honour him all your life. So here is a question to carry with you. What is one way you can remember God in the days of your youth, starting this week?