About 3,000 years ago Solomon wrote:

“A good name is better than a good ointment, and the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth”, Ecclesiastes 7:1

What? The day I die will be a better day than the day I was born? How can that be?

We get excited over everything about a baby being born and celebrate with balloons & parties. A new life has been conceived and promises to join us soon and that is good news. But Solomon tells us it is not the best news.

I believe Solomon’s words reflect God’s unique perspective on the births and deaths of his beloved children. Consider what he sees.

Birth brings a helpless child into this fallen world of great difficulty. There is sickness, disease & bad news of one kind or another constantly looming on the horizon.

This world at its best is a dark place and fraught with dangers both physical & spiritual. And these innocent children don’t stay that way for very long. They grow up and take part in the chaos. No one stays untainted. You used to be one of those innocents. What happened to you? Sin. Sin happened. Your sin.

So God sent Jesus. The cross shows God’s willingness to come to us where we are and bleed and die and hurt just like us. All so he could lift us out of this mess.

That’s where the day of our death comes in. Birth brings us into this world of heartaches, but death while walking with the Lord delivers us from it.

Just two verses after the one above Solomon also wrote:

“Sorrow is better than laughter, for when a face is sad, a heart may be happy”.

Jesus is the only one who makes this possible. Death breaks our hearts. The pain is tempered, however, with the knowledge that our loss is their gain. There is nothing we could ever imagine that could be better than that.

So yes, in Christ the day you die will be better than the day you were born.