I turned forty the other day. Yes, the big Four-Oh! I was subjected to the expected good-natured abuse from children, siblings, and parishioners past and present. (My beloved was very gracious.) By mail, fax and e-mail, various digs were dug. Someone asked whether I had picked out a bench at the mall yet. Another consoled me with the thought that I am almost eligible for pre-boarding on most major airlines. Another card first went on extensively about how mature and worthy of respect I am now that I have reached forty, only to audibly laugh me to scorn when I opened the card. The bright side of it all, I was told, is that 40 is only 28 American, and less than six in dog years. Hey, thanks!

On the morning of my birthday, I looked out the window to see forty pink flamingoes adorning the front lawn. (And, yes, I found out who had put them there.) All day long people honked their horns as they drove by. I spent the day in my study working on my sermon, labouring under the serene gaze of forty motionless pink birds. Unnerving. Someone asked me whether I’d traded my flock for another one.

In addition to the hilarity of the flock of flamingoes, I spent the day batting balloons off my desk. My children had gotten up early to stick some 80 balloons on the ceiling of my study. As they lost their charge (or whatever it is that happens to static electricity), they slowly descended on to my desk.

Okay! Everyone had their fun.

Turning forty, however, does give one pause to reflect upon the two score of years one has already been allowed to live and serve the Lord, and to think about the future. After all, like it or not, when you turn forty, you have officially hit middle age.

Age is somewhat of a relative thing. If you are five years old, someone who is thirty looks positively ancient. But once you’ve turned forty, thirty seems quite young. And someone who has reached the seventies or eighties can clearly see the dew dripping off the ears of a thirty-year old.

The Bible speaks here and there about age. An Israelite reached a certain level of maturity at age twenty. Numbers 1 indicates that when a man turned twenty years old, he was to be enlisted in the army. He was expected to bear the sword if need be to defend the people of God, to fight in the LORD’s army.

At twenty, one also reached an age of accountability before the LORD. Numbers 14 tells the story of how Israel rebelled against the LORD in the wilderness. They did not trust that He would lead them into the Promised Land. They complained about what God had done for them. The LORD punished them by making them wander in the wilderness for forty years until every man and woman who had been twenty years old or more on the day of the rebellion had died in the desert.

Once a Levite turned thirty years old, he acquired new responsibilities. Numbers 4 indicates that a man had to be thirty before he began service at the tabernacle. (Incidentally, he would retire from that work at age fifty.)

We also read of other men undertaking significant roles in society at age thirty. Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. The LORD called David to the throne of Israel when David was thirty years old. The Lord Jesus Christ was about thirty years old when he began his ministry.

Both Isaac and Esau were forty years old when they married. Caleb was forty when he entered the Promised Land as a spy. The lame man whom Peter healed in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth was over forty years old. He got a new lease on life although he was middle-aged. It reminds me of a man I once met who had been baptized on his fortieth birthday and who said: “See, it’s true; life does begin at forty.”

The Bible has quite a lot to say about age – youth, middle age, military age, age of accountability. It also has something to say about old age. Psalm 90 comes to mind. Moses the man of God said:

The length of our days is seventy years – or eighty, if we have the strength.

In the sovereign providence of God, some die young while others live well beyond eighty years. However, we are mortal. We are born, we live, we die. We live some three score and ten or, by reason of strength, four score – and then we die.

However, we do not just die. As the Apostle Paul taught us in his letter to the Philippians 1:22-23, we go to be with Christ! Paul wrote there about how he was torn between living, which for him was Christ, or dying, which was gain. It was gain because as a believer he knew that he would, upon death, continue to live – to live in the presence of Christ.

Someone who has lived many years and who senses that he is living the final years or days has a great prospect – to be with Christ! That means that someone who has just turned forty years old is about half-way there, if the normal course of events prevail. This is not bad. To be halfway to Paradise is not bad!

Turning forty years old is good. We are headed towards the New Jerusalem. Every year we are a little closer. No need for midlife crisis. Only cause for joy that I’m a year closer now than when I was thirty-nine.

Come, fellow-pilgrims, heads up. Together on the way we are headed for the Promised Land!