OF THE DOZENS upon dozens of funerals that I have conducted, I have never conducted one where the casket was occupied by anyone who had anything in his hand…

And none of the suits wrapped around those bodies required pockets.  “You can’t take it with you.”

Solomon forces us to face that moment we all tend to ignore — the moment of death.  He backs up three spaces and looks at the crash and says, “This is the grievous evil: Those who have clutched can quickly crash.”  Put another way, “Those who grabbed and rose to the top will ultimately release and drop to the bottom.”

Can you imagine the scene?  I envision a man who hoarded what he had and then lost it through a bad investment.  I can see another who fights and wins his way to the top, only to have the bottom drop out of his life as the stock market plunges.  And how about the individual who spends himself in a maddening pursuit of some financial goal, who drops dead of a heart attack?  It happens every day.  In Solomon’s words, he “toils for the wind.”  He departs exactly as he entered life…naked and without a thin dime to his name.  (Charles Swindoll)

“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” (Eccles. 5:13-15).

— Mike Benson