How should we view the onset of old age? The common assumption is that it is mainly a process of loss, whereby strength is drained from both mind and body and the capacity to look forward and move forward in life’s various departments is reduced to nothing. More than four centuries ago, Shakespeare put this assessment into the mouth of the melancholy Jaques in As You Like It. Surveying the seven ages of man on the world
stage, Jaques comes to this:
Last scene of all
That ends this strange eventful history
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
(act 2, scene 7)
And in the Bible, two thousand years or more before Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes, the
preacher-teacher-philosopher-wiseacre-pundit, not so much a pessimist as a realist who depicts everything as it appears “under the sun” to the thoughtful observer, urges the young to “remember … your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come …; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened” (joy in being alive fades), “and the clouds return after the rain” (troubles recur), “in the day when the keepers of the house tremble” (arms weaken, hands shake),
“and the strong men” (legs) “are bent, and the grinders” (teeth) “cease because they are few” (they drop out), “and those who look through the windows” (eyes) “are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut” (deafness develops)—“when the sound of the grinders is low” (chewing becomes an effort), “and one rises up at the sound of a bird” (sudden small noises, however sweet, upset one), “and all the daughters of song are brought low” (music, from being a delight, becomes a bore)—“they are afraid
also of what is high” (balance goes, dizziness comes), “and terrors are in the way” (one frequently feels frightened); “the almond tree blossoms” (hair turns white), “the grasshopper drags itself along” (one’s walking grows erratic and unsteady), “and desire fails” (emotional numbness sets in) … (Eccles. 12:1–5).
The picture is of loss, weakness, and apathy, leading to death. That is Ecclesiastes’s story about aging.
RIPENESS
But neither in the Bible
nor in life is this the whole story. Listen again to Shakespeare. In his tragedy King Lear, one of the world’s classics on dysfunctional families, a dispossessed son who refuses to be embittered by the way he has been treated comments thus on his blinded father’s loss of the will to live:
Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
Ripeness is all.
(act 5, scene 2)
“Ripeness”—what does that mean? The word carries the very positive meaning of maturity, corresponding to the ripeness of fruit. We know the difference between ripe and unripe fruit: the latter is sharp, acid, hard, without much flavor, and sets teeth on edge; the former is relatively soft and sweet, juicy, mellow, flavorful, leaving a pleasant aftertaste in the mouth.
Between human beings in and beyond middle
age a comparable difference appears. Some grow old gracefully, meaning, fully in the grip of the grace of God. Increasingly they display a well-developed understanding with a well-formed character: firm, resilient, and unyielding, with an unfailing sense of proportion and abundant resources for upholding and mentoring others. In Shakespeare’s play, however, “Ripeness is all” should be said with a certain gloominess, for the thought being expressed is that this personal ripeness will again and
again be all that one has at the end of life, though one expected, and had a right to expect, much more.
But here the Bible breaks in, highlighting the further thought that spiritual ripeness is worth far more than material wealth in any form, and that spiritual ripeness should continue to increase as one gets older.
The Bible’s view is that aging, under God and by grace, will bring wisdom, that is, an enlarged capacity for discerning, choosing, and encouraging. In Proverbs 1–7 an
evidently elderly father teaches realistic moral and spiritual wisdom to his adult but immature son. In Psalm 71 an elderly preacher who has given the best years of his life to teaching the truth about God in the face of much opposition prays as follows:
You, O LORD, are my hope,
my trust, O LORD, from my youth.…
Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
forsake me not when my
strength is spent.…
But I will hope continually
and will praise you yet more and more.
My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,
of your deeds of salvation all the day,
for their number is past my knowledge.
With the mighty deeds of the Lord GOD I will come;
I will remind them of your righteousness, yours
alone.
O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might to another generation,
your power to all those to come. (Ps. 71:5, 9, 14–18)
J. I. Packer, Finishing Our Course with Joy: Guidance from
God for Engaging with Our Aging (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 14–21.
