Thursday, January 1, 2026

Christmas Devotion

Today's Scripture
Ecclesiastes 3:1–13

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. (NRSV)

Reflection

I’ve been to Bondi Beach.

A mentor, Eli, is emeritus faculty at Brown University.

I enjoyed Rob Reiner’s films: When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men.

Atrocities, tragedies, crises, small and large, poignantly define our world. As Christians, we hold close our Faith and wait on the Lord. As grown-ups, we can’t look away. And as the philosophy of Stoicism argues, the only way forward is through. But how do we cope?

This is January 1 — a time for reset, the canvas is beige again; in our secular world, we cope with the passing year and anticipate the new year by seeking black-eye peas, committing to dry January, returning to the gym (always short-lived), and making resolutions (be careful, some of us actually keep resolutions). Question: Do any of our secular coping strategies work?

Instead, let’s visit this lyrical passage from Ecclesiastes. If verses 1–8 were a poem, it would be a wisdom poem with antithetical parallelism. It is so commonplace now that the attribution is simply “the Bible says.” This is source documentation for “A Time for Everything.” And indeed, there is a time for everything, but don’t we struggle with “a time to kill? A time to hate? A time for war?”

But reconsider Ecclesiastes and go deeper. It is a book of wisdom, and the author (unknown) may well have been Solomon. Ecclesiastes focuses on a duality of life, one of which in Hebrew is known as hevel, as in “fleeting or unmoored”, thus allowing the juxtapositions we see in verses 1–8. But also, the book focuses on something heightened.

It is imperative that we interpret verses 1–8 in the fuller context of verses 9–13. Therein lies wisdom. It now becomes Solomon-esque. Instead of a permissive, it is a treatise; these are God’s declarations:

What do we reap from our toil?

Everything is beautiful in its time.

Eternity is in the human heart.

There is nothing better for people to do than to do good while they live.

Finding satisfaction in our toil is the gift of God.

Yes, there is a time — a time for all that is good; a time for all that is beautiful; a time for all that God set in the eternity of the human heart. This is how we cope. And here is how we soar — start this year with mending, with peace, with love, and accept toil as our gift from God.

Happy New Year.

Prayer

Dear God, we welcome this day as the rejuvenating sunrise of a new year. The horizon awaits. Let us be washed in the blessing of another journey around the sun. Give us wisdom to see eternity in every heart and perseverance to toil for good. Amen.

Written by Clyde Yancy, Member of Fourth Presbyterian Church

Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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