All your friends sit in your living room, having just dined sumptuously at your table, and now take up residence on your furniture. Tea and coffee have been served all around and a lively conversation keeps on going. In a bit, you will break out a game of Settlers of Catan or maybe something more relaxed, like Carcassonne. Much later than is wise, friends will start heeding their yawns and begin to say goodbye. Finally, the house will be still with the warmth of the leftover evening, like the smells of the dinner that was enjoyed a few hours ago.
Is there anything better than a party?
Seriously. Good friends. Good food. Good conversation. Catching up on life. Is there anything better?
I suppose some personalities would answer that question differently. The wayward might prefer a different kind of party, and this one is easy to dismiss as not worth it for the Christian. The elderly might prefer something similar, but starting at lunch and ending at dinner, leaving plenty of time to get home and ready for bed. The youthful might prefer going out for a late dinner and staying out until the middle of the night, perhaps at an all-night coffee and donut shop. And young parents might be quite fine with any party, so long as it involves someone else watching the kids for a few precious moments! But all in all, parties are pretty great.
Parties are a bit universal. Across cultures, humans love to spend time together. Gathering and eating and laughing and talking – these all span language and cultural barriers. It’s just what humans love to do. Stop and think if you can find anything that would be anything better than going to a party.
Our near universal love of spending time together is what made me take a second glance at Ecclesiastes 7:2 and 7:4. In these two verses we learn that there is actually one thing that is better than a party . . .
2 “It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
That’s right. The Bible would advise you to attend a funeral if you had to choose between a funeral and a party. The “house of mourning” is describing the home of someone who has recently experienced death. In fact, the place we often have funerals (if not at a church) is called a “funeral home.” This is literally a place constructed to hold and care for those final activities that relate to death.
I recently attended a funeral for a young wife and mother. She was not yet thirty and had faced cancer for the last three years. Her husband and small daughter, like me and my own children, have learned the truth of this verse by experience. The next most recent funeral I attended was for my late wife. Before that, it was for a dear friend who had walked the cancer path almost in lockstep with me and my late wife. Each of these occasions were in stark contrast to a night of playing board games with friends or a night out on the town. Funerals are serious. Even the ones that aren’t, are (or should be). For they speak of the reality that we will all face one day, the reality of death. Sorrow, grief, loss, these are the songs which a funeral sings. And all the while, we who are alive are left to consider the most important and personal question of all; “when will it be my time to die?”
So, the Bible is on to something. It is better to go to a funeral than to a party. After all, everyone will have a funeral. But not everyone gets to have a party. Wisdom will take this question seriously and thus also begin to take life seriously. It’s easy to “live in the moment” when you haven’t seen someone’s moment end. It’s easy to say “you only live once” when you haven’t watched a friend die and wondered what will happen next. And it’s easy to bat away the question of eternity, when you haven’t spent much time thinking of anything but the “here and now.”
Do you want wisdom? Then take some time and think about your own funeral. After all, the question isn’t if . . . it’s when.
Thoughts Worth Thinking 