Readings for today: Ecclesiastes 1-6
Ecclesiastes. The most depressing book in all the Bible. So depressing in fact that many have questioned why it was even included in the canon of Scripture. Tradition tells us Solomon wrote this book in his old age as he looked back on his life with deep regret. You may remember he started out well. Asking for wisdom from God when he could have had riches and honor and power. But over the years, he fell into temptation. He did all the things kings were not supposed to do according to Deuteronomy 17. Acquiring incredible wealth. Marrying many women. Accumulating great military power. As a result, he began to believe his own hype. Trust in his own strength. Rely on himself and his own wisdom to make his way in the world. He forged alliances with many nations. He allowed for the worship of many different gods. Especially for his harem. Over 700 wives and 300 concubines. Craziness. The result was apostasy. Solomon lost his first love. And it is his regret that we hear so clearly as we read this book and it should serve as a warning to us all. If the wisest and wealthiest and most powerful king in the history of Israel can fall away, so can we. And this is why we must read this book. Because we’ve been given a window here, friends. An opportunity. Life for many of us, pre-COVID, was simply unsustainable. We were running too fast. Redlining our lives. But then came the shutdown. All of sudden we were reminded what life at a slower pace looks like. We were reminded what meals around the family dinner table felt like. We were reminded of some of the simpler things like evening walks, family games, cooking and cleaning together, lots of laughter and joy. Friends, life doesn’t have to go back to the way it was before this crisis hit. You do have a choice. You can keep chasing all the vanities that exist under the sun and be exhausted and busy and miserable most of the time or you can start chasing that which is eternal which only comes from God and leads to happiness.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus asks this question. Very similar to the one Solomon asks in Ecclesiastes. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul? Or as Solomon puts it, What does man gain or profit by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? Is it wealth? Honor? Power? Pleasure? Wisdom? All these things are vanity according to Solomon. The Hebrew word for “vanity” literally means “hot air.” Smoke on the wind. A breath of vapor on a cold day. They are here today and gone tomorrow. There is no substance to them. Certainly nothing eternal about them. Think about all your accomplishments. Everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Think of the hours you’ve put in. Think of the energy you’ve invested. Think of the sacrifices you’ve made. Think of the stress and anxiety you’ve had to endure. Is it really worth it? A generation comes and a generation goes. How many of you remember know what your great-grandparents accomplished? How many of you even know their names?
The Bible says even the earth is subjected to vanity. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:20-21) And that’s why the Apostle Paul will go on to say that all creation is groaning. Just like all of humanity is groaning. Waiting for the day when all things will be made new. All wrongs be set right. The curse of sin broken. The weight of sin lifted. The burden of sin removed. We all know deep down that nothing in this world endures. Nothing done under the sun will go with us. Not our wealth. Not our possessions. Not our reputations. Not our achievements. No matter how great they may be. The things of this world were simply not made to endure and that’s why Solomon says there’s nothing new under the sun. It’s like the world’s set eternally on repeat. The things we’ve said. The things we’ve seen. The things we’ve heard. All the things we’ve done. None of it’s new. It has been already in the ages before us. And so Solomon concludes, It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. The more we see the world for what it truly is, the more our hearts break. All you have to do is look around. Well over 100K dead so far from COVID-19. Millions of dollars of damage from the riots and looting of the last several weeks in cities all across America. Violence between police and protestors. Racial tensions erupting yet again because of how we’ve failed to face our history honestly and pursue justice and reconciliation for people of color in our country. The more we see these things, the more helpless and hopeless we are tempted to feel. And that’s exactly where God wants us. At the end of ourselves. The end of our strength. The end of our wisdom. The end of our ideas. The end of our resources. For at the end of it all. Where our groanings meet creation’s groanings, there we find yet Another groaning with us. The Holy Spirit. Paul says, The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how to pray so the Spirit Himself prays for us with groanings too deep for words…Friends, what Paul essentially is saying in Romans 8 is that for the Christian – and this is where we have the advantage over King Solomon. King Solomon for all his wisdom focused too much on things done under the sun – and that’s why he got so depressed and discouraged - whereas we Christians know the One who reigns and rules over the sun. So as we fix our eyes on Him, we can trust that the Holy Spirit is at work. Searching the depths of our hearts. Gathering up all the broken and shattered pieces of our lives. Pulling together all the vanity of vanities that so often mark our lives and bringing them into the holy of holies to present them as an offering before the Father. And what do we receive in return? Grace. Mercy. Peace. Contentment. Joy. In short, true happiness. Why? Because we have confidence that our Father’s work is NOT vanity. And His promise is that He will work all things together – even all the violence and suffering and heartbreak and pain we’re seeing and experiencing in our world today – for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
So instead of looking for hope in all our vanity under the sun, we should be looking to the One who reigns and rules over the sun. The One who first set the sun in motion and called the stars by name. The one who built the storehouses for the winds and first filled the streams. The One who dug the ocean’s depths with His own hands and raised the mountains high. We look to the One who loved us so much He gave us His only Son. Friends, Jesus Christ redeems us from the vanities of this life. He Himself embraced the vanity of this world so He could set free us from it. He endured the vanity of vanities of the cross so He could save us. And as a result, the work you and I do now carries eternal weight. The lives you and I lead are eternally significant. Because Jesus rose from the dead, our labor is never in vain.
Readings for tomorrow: Ecclesiastes 7-12