What does it mean that there is a time to weep and a time to laugh (Ecclesiastes 3:4)?

"T." We believe the key to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, and indeed to the entire book, will be found in the expression, "under the sun." The Spirit of God has furnished us, in this interesting book, with a commentary upon all under the sun — a glowing picture of the old creation, and of man in the midst of it. "Under the sun" there is time for everything. God has set one thing over against another. If there is a birth, there is a death; if there is a smile, there is a tear; the sorrow stands over against the joy. Thus it is "under the sun." This is the law of the old creation. But look at Paul in Phil. 3. Had he "a time for everything?" No. "One thing I do," he says. And why? Because he had found his life, his sphere, and his object, "above the sun" — in that "new creation" of which Christ is the Head and the Centre, and wherein "all things are of God." We have frequently heard Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 abused in the way you allude to; but it has invariably been by those whose hearts are in this present evil world, and who are bold enough to quote Scripture in defence of their worldliness. Alas, for all such!

Sunlit hills and shady valleys have their place in the earth as well as fertile plains and sun-scorched deserts, and God has made it so, for He is the God of diversity, as all His works declare. And our lives are like that. They are not on one dead level, we have our ups and downs, our laughter and our tears, the hill-tops and the valleys, and sometimes the deep, dark gorges from which it seems impossible that the feet that tread them could ever emerge.

Some have strange views of life, warped and limited; they would restrict the laughter or restrain the tears; but it is legality that does the one, and pride that attempts the other; and legality is of the flesh, and pride is of the Devil. There are those who imagine that there is no joy in the Christian life, and others who wonder why there should be any sorrow in it. The faith of the one has never grasped the fact that God gives us all things richly to enjoy, the others do not understand that He watches us with a Father's unwearying eye, and may sometimes see that it is necessary to chasten and reprove us lest we revel in earthly good and despise or forget the deeper and eternal things, and drift away from Him Who is the Giver of all good.

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." (Eccles. 3:1.) Every thing under the sun is measured by "times." There is a time to be born, and a time to die. No matter what the purpose which the sons of men may take in hand under the heaven, each has its time, but only its "time." It is not "for ever," and its time passes on and is gone. Well is it if they who are passing through these varied times are exercised by the travail which they occasion. (Eccles. 1:13; 3:10.) But beneath the exercises of these times there is a "work that God maketh from the beginning to the end;" for there is a path which the vulture's eye hath not seen. It is hid from the eyes of the living, but God understandeth the way thereof (Job 29), and this work, wrought in ways of infinite wisdom, is "for ever." "I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it that men should fear before Him." It is done to produce holy fear, the beginning of wisdom in man, and becomes the means of the senses being exercised to discern good and evil in those who otherwise would put good for evil, and evil for good. (Isa. 5:20.) Man cannot find out this work, because his vision is bounded by the horizon of time, and he can but take in by his own powers and senses those things which are thus measured. Very different is God's "for ever." He is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End; and blessed it is to know that as the varied seasons roll round, and a time to weep and a time to laugh succeed each other, that a feeble creature of time, by faith, and through sovereign mercy, can find his dwelling-place in the eternity of God. "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations … from eternity to eternity thou art God."

"To all is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which 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 cast 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 cast away; a time to rend, 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" (vers. 1-8).

I refer to the thought of tears with the desire that the Lord may bring our affections into alignment with divine compassions. It is clear from the 3rd chapter of Ecclesiastes that in the calendar of God room is made for weeping. It is said, "There is … a time to weep," but one would desire that our weeping might be intelligent. There are tears in Scripture which are unavailing; we have in relation to Esau, a profane person, the matter of tears which were altogether unavailing. We read in Malachi of the people of God flooding the altar with tears which God refused to regard. We need to be preserved from tears which are not in accord with the feelings and movements of divine Persons, but we need to be encouraged to weep according to God.

But there was more, reserved for a somewhat higher intimation. "And Nehemiah, that is, the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy to Jehovah your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law" (ver. 9). It was no wonder, for God's word never spares evil; and they justly felt their sins. But we ought as His people to feel His grace to His own. There many fail, as the sons of Israel till they learnt better that day. "There is a time to mourn, and a time to dance," which was suited to that season. "And he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy to our Lord; and be not grieved, for the joy of Jehovah is your strength. And the Levites quieted all the people, saying, Be still, for the day is holy; neither he ye grieved. And all the people went their way to eat and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them" (vers. 10-12).

There is a moment coming when tears will all be gone. Three times in Scripture are we told that God will wipe away all tears; Isaiah 25:8; Revelation 7:17; Revelation 21:4. Two references would have been adequate testimony to the fact; but we have the Holy Spirit's complete testimony to the fact that the day is coming when God Himself will remove all tears, and the cause of those tears will be gone for ever, "He shall wipe away every tear," (New Trans.). Every true tear recorded; every true tear valued by God; but every tear wiped away. Beloved, let us value the opportunities of the night of weeping; it is on the divine calendar, "There is… a time to weep." We see the breakdown around us and we have to take account of it in our own histories, too. Peter was brought to the realization of the fact that he had grieved the heart of Christ, and "he went out, and wept bitterly." If we were more sensitive in regard of all that which is contrary to the holy love of Christ, and sorrowed in a godly way over it, there would be compensating occasions of joy, for He delights to "give … beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." (Isa. 61:3).

If, however, in these scenes we see shining examples of the faith of God's elect in the presence of death, we also learn that faith does not set aside natural affection. Thus we read, "Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her" (v. 2). Full well faith knows that our loved ones that die in the Lord will rise again, and that for them death is gain, but nonetheless we rightly mourn and feel their loss. Our sure and certain hope of resurrection tells us indeed, as the apostle reminds us, that our sorrow is not the sorrow of those who have no hope. But there is no word to say we are not to sorrow. None could know the power of resurrection like the One who is Himself the resurrection and the life, and yet He wept at the grave of Lazarus.

Not all God's children are tested in the same way in this homeward journey. Some are well acquainted with bodily pain and weakness, with weary days and sleepless nights; others are misunderstood and persecuted by those they long most to bless; many suffer keenly as they see those suffer who are dearer to them than life, and still others have the deeper and, if it were not for the sure hope of resurrection, the darker sorrow that death lays heavily on the heart as he swings his sharp and effective scythe. No wonder that many sigh and weep, nor can we condemn them, for “Jesus wept,” and the heart that is not moved by sorrow and trial is a hard and insensible heart.

Not all God's children are tested in the same way in this homeward journey. Some are well acquainted with bodily pain and weakness, with weary days and sleepless nights; others are misunderstood and persecuted by those they long most to bless; many suffer keenly as they see those suffer who are dearer to them than life, and still others have the deeper and, if it were not for the sure hope of resurrection, the darker sorrow that death lays heavily on the heart as he swings his sharp and effective scythe. No wonder that many sigh and weep, nor can we condemn them, for "Jesus wept," and the heart that is not moved by sorrow and trial is a hard and insensible heart.