There is a severe evil which I have seen under the sun: riches kept for their owner to his hurt. But those riches perish through misfortune; when he begets a son, there is nothing in his hand. As he came from his mother’s womb, naked shall he return, to go as he came; and he shall take nothing from his labor which he may carry away in his hand. And this also is a severe evil—just exactly as he came, so shall he go. And what profit has he who has labored for the wind? All his days he also eats in darkness, and he has much sorrow and sickness and anger. Ecclesiastes 5:13–17
When Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist (and a Jew), became a prisoner at Auschwitz during WW2, he took with him the manuscript of a scientific book which embodied his entire life’s work. When he attempted to explain to one of the seasoned prisoners the significance of the book and that he must keep it at all cost, his fellow inmate simply grinned, uttered an insulting expletive, and walked away. In his autobiography, Frankl recalls then being herded by SS men into a room where everything was taken from them with the exception of their shoes and belts, which were not taken from them until sometime later. Frankl recalls, “We really had nothing now except our bare bodies––even minus hair; all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence. What else remained for us as a material link with our former lives? For me there were my glasses and my belt; the latter I had to exchange later for a piece of bread” (Man’s Search for Meaning, p. 24).
Of this man’s life before the camp, absolutely nothing remained. In 1942, when it was discovered that Frankl’s wife Tilly was pregnant, the Nazis forced her to abort the child, and the entire family was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, where Frankls’ father died of pneumonia. In 1944, his wife and mother were gassed at Auschwitz, and his brother died in a mine operated by camp inmates. Frankl tells of spending his first night in the camp (October 23) and hearing music, remembering that it was his wife’s 24th birthday. He did not know whether she was only a few hundred feet away, transported to another camp, or incinerated in the crematorium. The next day he was transported to another camp and thus separated from all family and former acquaintances. Of his immediate family, only his sister survived. His home was gone. His family was gone. His belongings were gone. His life’s work had been thrown out with the garbage.
When we die, what will we take with us of all that was important to us here? When Job lost his wealth, his health, and his family, he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). We see this very sentiment echoed by Solomon a few centuries later as he contemplates the vanity of life’s trivial pursuits. When we leave this world, is there anything of any value that we can take with us? If so, shouldn’t that be our focus? Why should we spend so much time and effort to enrich ourselves in a currency that will be worthless in the world to which we are going? Whether we want to consider it or not, the fact of the matter is that every one of us will be leaving this world sooner or later. What preparations have you made?
Next week we will look at a list of things that we cannot take on the journey from this world to the next, but we will also see that there are some things that can be carried over. It is to the acquisition of the latter that we should dedicate all our energies while life here remains.