ECCLESIASTES CHAPTER 1 1The words of the Preacher,the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3What does man gain by all the toilat which he toils under the sun?
4A generation goes, and a generation comes,but the earth remains forever.
5The sun rises, and the sun goes down,and hastens to the place where it rises.
6The wind blows to the southand goes around to the north;around and around goes the wind,and on its circuits the wind returns.
7All streams run to the sea,but the sea is not full;to the place where the streams flow,there they flow again.
8All things are full of weariness;a man cannot utter it;the eye is not satisfied with seeing,nor the ear filled with hearing.
9What has been is what will be,and what has been done is what will be done,and there is nothing new under the sun.
10Is there a thing of which it is said,“See, this is new”?It has been alreadyin the ages before us.
11There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembranceof later things yet to beamong those who come after. 12I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
15What is crooked cannot be made straight,and what is lacking cannot be counted. 16I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
18For in much wisdom is much vexation,and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
FIND A HAPPY PLACE
For years, whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was easily entertained and diverted from delving too deep into things (still am to a large extent). I was sort of a pensive kid, but my thoughts weren't all that deep. I have always been one who brooded and thought to myself in the back seat of the car. But most of that was childhood fantasies and imaginary conversations that would never happen. I never probed reality. Why am I here? What's the point of me being here? Stuff like that....stayed away like mosquitos to deet spray. To be honest, I was scared to death what I might discover and decided to occupy my mind and time with daily stuff and when I spent time to myself, indulge in the fantasies and imaginary conversations. Music was always a passion from a very young age. It seemed as if you could find the artist as someone who was in the same situation as yourself, it made the music sound even better than it did before realizing what the lyrics were saying. At least that's how it was with me. No deep songs....just songs about....fantasies and imaginary conversations. As I grew, it was easier to avoid. You pick up all sorts of diversions the older you get. Pretty soon, you don't even realize you're doing that. It all seems natural and normal.
Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I would say that most people would consider Socrates a tool and unrealistic for having said that. Being successful with diverting attention over the years results in us trivializing these probing questions. There's a smorgasbord of options for diversions....many of them tactical. Television now has over 100 options and with digital, you can multiscreen different programs. Cool. Broadband below 4 meg is considered slow today. We tend to pay attention to flesh tones on commercials and computers, almost unconsciously. But those are 'creature comforts'. Then there are the diversions that aren't provacotive or controversial, like work, family. These are wonderful things, but to be honest, they are too easily big diversions too. And we milk it until the children fly the coop, the spouse leaves, dies or the job turns into either an empty success or a horrifying failure.... or extreme boredom.
Somehow, lack of sleep at 3am is the worst time to avoid those questions. So, turn on the television and see what's on. Probably Big Brother After Dark or International House Hunters. Cool...at least for a little while...when will sleep come!
If anyone of you have no idea what I'm talking about, then you'd probably lie about other things as well. This seems to be a common human experience. In fact, a subtle and creeping disatisfaction with life, regardless of successes or failures, permeates our thoughts when things get quiet and points to a deeper issue. I think its meaning....you know...why am I here...what's the point...etc....the trival crap Socrates referred to :-)
In fact, I'd say that the root to drug and alcohol addictions, depression, anxiety disorders, phobias, broken marriages, dishonest business dealings, pretty much all sin, are either rooted in this or fed by it. We get too close to it and we desparately want to find a happy place, artificially induced or otherwise. Some of us are fortunate enough to supress it rather easily. With others, it takes more work and some help. I fall into the first category....doesn't take much to divert my attention.
The writer of this chapter was touted as being the smartest man in the world. If you read Scripture, he was also the most experienced. He had over 700 wives and 300 concubines. He started off an orthodox advocate of Mosaic law, handed down to him from David, his dad. But as the wives and concubines came in, as his successes expanded, so did many other religions and idealogies. He delved into them all. I would contend there is no contemporary comparison to Solomon...not even Elvis or the Beatles. Solomon probably represents the single most successful and intelligent person of all time. By the time he wrote this passage, he'd gotten to the end of it all....success, women, religion, wealth, power...and he concluded it was all vanity....all meaningless.
Here's the main idea:
There is nothing new under the sun.
Everything under the sun, absent some transcendent meaning beyond it, is completely pointless, regardless of how important we think it is.
You can choose to divert attention away from this reality, and most do. But it is an excersize in self-delusion.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, I PRESENT TO YOU...BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH, BLAAAAAHHHH
The Hebrew word used in this text for vanity literally means empty, transitory, unsatisfactory. The word gives images of an unquenchable thirst, hunger or an itch that just can't be properly scratched. He says that
all
is vanity....rather than some or most or a little bit or just the taboo things. All under the sun, which is everything we call life, is meaningless, empty, vaccuous, unsatisfactory and simply doesn't scratch the itch. Most would probably consider it dark and overly pessimistic. It's one thing if he's exagerating the situation, needlessly or has an axe to grind. But its an entirely different situation if its true, but we don't like the sound of it and reject it for no good reason other than we don't like the ring of it or the feelings it conjurs. He makes his case in several steps, going through work, then diversions, wisdom then success. Though these things seem to draw attention away, they ultimately never fulfill. His arguments for these things are encompassed in the opening statement, his main thesis, from one who definitely knows and is in a position to know.Verses two through seven make me think of workaholics, like myself, and environmentalists. No matter what we do, the earth swallows us whole, and our work, in total. Generations come and go. Octavius Gaius Caesar would eventually become Augustus Caesar, rule the world, die and end up as a nameless statue in front of a large casino/resort in Las Vegas, amid taxis, drunk tourists and hookers. Sort of anticlimactic, especially for someone who, comparitavely, was one of the most significant people in history. Solomon understood this reality nearly 1,000 years before Octavius was born. Hard work, successful or not, doesn't last and ultimately gets blown away by the wind. The rest of these verses bring up an important point about environmentalism. It isn't about the environment. Never was. Environmentalists aren't protecting the environment. They are protecting themselves. It's about us and our neurotic fear of not having control over nature. Solomon is saying no matter what we do, the earth will swallow us up and leave no trace. The environment is durable and adaptable. We're not so much, and as George Carlin once said, earth will shake us off like a bad case of fleas, if carbon footprints turn out to be a problem after all. All is vanity.
The next three verses deal with the absurdity and meaninglessness of diversions, either important ones or insignificant. Both eye sees and ear hears, with almost an unnoticed axiety, yet none of it satisfies us. Again, this is in context to everything under the sun. No matter what exists in earth, no matter how much pleasure, immediate gratification, it never satisfies. In fact, the text seems to indicate that it leads to a larger need for satisfaction, stoking the coals, rather than quenching the fire. The Hebrew word for 'satisfy' in these verses reflect a lack of fulfillment, unquenched thirst, to the point of weariness or despair. You get the idea that disappointment is recycled a million times over and still hardly anyone finally embraces it. All things are full of weariness, a man cannot utter it. There's no way to even explain this despair in order to capture its power and intensity. It's simply too much to grasp without getting drunk.
Verses 9 and 10 talk about ingenuity that turns out to be a rehash of a rehash of a rehash. We get great ideas about anything and pat ourselves on the back for being original and innovative. That is, until we figure out our discovery is more of a recovery of older ideas, just tweeked a little. Did you realize the ideas of Jehovah's Witnesses is rehashed Arianism from the 4th century? Christian Science is really modernized gnosticism. Postmodernism is the old classical skepticism. All the atheistic arguments aren't really new. They've been around the block many times before. Remember when Jesus told Pilate those on the side of truth listen to him? Pilate's response was "What is truth, anyway?" Sounds almost like a line out of a Cohen Brothers movie. Nothing is new under the sun. According to Solomon, nothing is new. Things and ideas come and go. If anyone thinks something is innovative, someone has already said it or done it many times over. The idea of progress....onward and upward, in the macro view, according to Solomon, is more of a flat, sideways motion, if it can even be called motion.
He ends this chapter by saying he prayed for wisdom, got it, considered it a huge burden to deal with and concludes, once again, everything under the sun is totally meaningless. Nothing is new. It would seem Solomon is building a recipe for suicide or simply checking out. The arguments he outlays in the following chapters are compelling and without an answer, one would have to admit that suicide or checking out is just a viable an option as pushing the red button, building skyscrapers, conquering nations or sitting on the couch and eating Cheetos. In the macro view, it doesn't matter.
Some say knowledge is power, saves or enlightens. According to the smartest man, knowledge, outside of life in Christ, leads to sorrow.
It doesn't end that way with Solomon. It didn't end that way with me. It doesn't have to end that way for you either. When Solomon states 'everything under the sun' he means a life lived without recognition of anything except what is under the sun. Without a transcendent point to all we observe, all we observe is completely pointless. Sartre stated once that any finite point without an infinite reference point is absurd. If there is nothing transcendent to anchor meaning in this life, it is absurd. But Sartre was wrong and Solomon wasn't ending his teaching with despair. He was only trying to point us to the real meaning to everything under the sun...which is beyond it.
MY AWAKENING....TO UNBEARABLE DESPAIR, JUST IN TIME TO BE SAVED
My own wake up from diversions and self-delusion was when my son died. Part of it was from fatigue, but aside that, once you experience a child's death, particularly if that is your only one at the time, you all the sudden begin to wake up and realize it is all pointless. How could it be anything but? It seemed only that event was powerful enough to wake me up to the folly of everything I did. Everything I did, from work, to relationships to combing my hair, picking out clothes or mowing the lawn, my carefully chosen mannerisms, etc...all meaningless...and humiliatingly pointless. Why did I do it? Was it just to impress others and gain acceptance? If so, from whom? Was I catering acceptance from others doing the very same humiliating rituals? Life was a three ring circius. Pass or fail, it all ends and is forgotten. Everything I thought was of vital importance was destined to die and decay into dust. Now, if someone would have introduced me to a life coach, I have no idea what I would have done. The idea of someone trying to manipulate me away from this reality to a sort of "My Little Poney" view of reality, for adults, was nausiating and almost made me violent at the thought. "Kill the life coach now! Use any blunt instrument!" I had gone from being a relatively docile guy, easily diverted and on the treadmill to who the hell knows where, to someone that wanted out, or a real alternative. But no more humiliating dances. Status quo for 29 years had to end or be properly explained. No third rail.
Jesus showed up and I was changed instantly. It's a good thing too. I am sure I would be divorced, sired several orphans, picked up a nasty addiction to something destructive or maybe even considered suicide, if it was painless. I didn't like pain. I still don't care much for it. But a meaningless existence was painful too. It (suicide) could have been an option. I truly believe that my state then was the closest I had ever been to reality, absent Jesus Christ. I wasn't left there. Jesus said seek and you will find. I felt like at that moment, I honestly sought, probably for the very first time in my entire life. Jesus invaded these thoughts, showed me not only His sacrifice for me through my son, but also that He was that small voice I recognized but couldn't identify, till then. It was Him all along. He was meaning because, as Scripture states, all things were made by Him, through Him and for Him. A life with meaning outside of Him is a life without meaning. Anything touted as a substitute is counterfeit and an excersize in futility.
Look, haven't you ever recognized, even for a split second, what Solomon is saying? Surely there have been those moments....probably not so much in the midst of a lot of suffering, but more than likely just after purchasing a new automobile, house, promotion, special recognition....success, achievement....those are the times, I believe, where the emptiness seems more acute. Ravi Zacharias had stated it best that despair is at its worst when you achieve that, which you thought would deliver the ultimate, and it let you down. I heard the testimony of a basketball player. He worked like a Turk to be the best. At last, after the hard work, he ended up scoring a 52 point game. It was a record. In the locker room, after the team cleared out and the celebration ended, he began to realize that nothing had really changed, even after scoring 52 points. He was right.
But Jesus is the purpose for the cosmos, humanity and history in general. It's all here and continues to exist because of Him. He's the point to it all. And He came just for those who choose to place there confidence for living in Him alone, by grace, through faith. With regards to reality outside of Christ, this is why I can understand the nihilists and the more destructive ideas than I can liberal Christianity or emergent Christianity or even peitistic or pharisiaical Christianity. I have more respect for George Carlin or Marilyn Manson than I ever will Jeremiah Wright, Brian McLaren or Bono. Its because George and Marilyn are closer to the truth than the others, outside of Biblical Christianity. The others are on some weird, self-deluded trip or loud, violent activism toward louder and more violent meaninglessness. It's all, bottom line, a giant wank-a-thon. All is vanity, outside of Christ.
"I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD"
Here's the good news about Jesus. If He is the way, truth and the life. If all things are really made by, through and for Him, then even the death of my son is meaningful and, although painful and horrible, ultimately leads to something greater than the pain and horror itself. All things work for good of those that love God and are called according to His purpose. All things, rather than a few, some or many. And if it all made sense, then God is about as smart as I am, which isn't very smart and doesn't have that big a perspective. God, by definition should be more grandious, mysterious than a human personality. According to God's own words, through the prophet Isaiah, His thoughts are not ours, nor His ways ours. That's actually a good thing.
But since even good things are mysterious, they too are leading somewhere, rather than an empty feeling, even if I can't comprehend it yet. Also, no one suffered like Jesus. It's impossible to give a good representation of something earthly to compare His sacrifice. But maybe, if you are a parent, consider giving your child for someone else, watching them get brutalized, hear them call out for you to help, yet you have to turn your back, regardless of how shredded your insides feel and near insanity your mind approaches. What kind of concern would you have to have in order to allow such a thing to happen? Who is important enough to have your own child sacrificed in order for them to be reconciled to you somehow? It is inconcievable, to the point of it offending our senses, to think of a love so big, deep and powerful enough. Even if you had the power to completely heal your child from whatever brutality they suffered, could you still do it?
What kind of love is this?
You have the rest of your natural life to try grasping this mystery....or else keep dancing those humiliating dances and trying to keep enough diversions in your life to avoid dealing with the void that is always there and will not go away. In fact, I think all our advances in technology, entertainment and science itself has resulted from our desparate attempt to escape that void. God's only Son, the One He had to watch being brutilized, His call for help, yet turned His back on Him for the sole reason of providing a way for us to seek His face without condemnation. Through His Son's resurrection, to conquer death and become heir to all that is His, which is everything. A universe this vast is one that is for us to fill with the work of our hands and minds, all as a form of worship for the One who rescued idiots like me from a bitter end. If He can do that for me, He can certainly do it for you. It doesn't matter what you have or haven't done. It has been completely paid for. Do you want to merely exist or live? Sure, there will be pain, disappointment and some despair. But it will not be at your core. It will only be at the periphery. But it will all be unfused with rich meaning and purpose, whether comprehended or infused with the hope of comprehension at a later time. It requires nothing from you but your confidence and trust in Him....with empty hands. It's so easy.
By placing Him first, relationships have meaning and you can love them best. Outside of that, there is no anchor and relationships become 'it', dissapate eventually, and you are left with a big gaping hole to fill with something else.
By placing Him first, everything from work, social context, church...even down to the mundane things, like light bulbs, all seem to have a place that makes sense, regardless of the place we'd think they'd belong without placing Him first.
It can go hard or easy for us all. It went hard for Him, so that it doesn't have to be that way for us. His work is complete. Mere existence can turn into life and life eternal, now and hereafter. I will close with quotes from unbelievers who, I think, nailed the conclusion Solomon did years ago, then end with Jesus:
“… meaningless tragedies ... are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no intentions of any kind. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” (emphasis added)- Richard Dawkins
“Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.”
"Hell is other people."
"People who live in society have learned to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. Is that why my flesh is naked? You might say - yes you might say, nature without humanity… Things are bad! Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea"
All three, above, by Jean Paul Sartre
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” - Jesus Christ
