The Now and the Forever

[God] has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11b ESV)

The author’s worldview accepted that there was some type of existence beyond the present life.  He believed that a person was born with an innate—God given—sense of ‘eternity’ (Hebrew olam ‘forever’ or ‘everlasting’).  This deep rooted feeling is accompanied by an uneasy sense, ‘disquietness’, at the inability to figure out or comprehend God’s ways.  There are certainly aspects of God’s nature and purpose that can be discerned, but human ability in this is limited (see Deuteronomy 29:29).  The quest of the finite for the infinite, unless aided by the Infinite, is bound to end in disappointment. 

Thus the author concludes that the course a person should set is not to give way to despair or disillusionment at what they cannot know, but to recognize what God has given that may be known and enjoyed—the simple pleasures of life as stated in 3:12-13—to “be joyful and to do good” and to eat, drink and enjoy our work, “this is God's gift to man.”  It isn’t that God doesn’t intend for a person to have or know more, but that these ‘basics’ are His gift to all.

Man always chases extremes.  On the one hand a person can become so caught up in the pursuit of eternity that they forego or miss the pleasures of life which God has given in the ‘now’.  Perhaps you know someone like this—someone who lives an ascetic or ‘Spartan’ lifestyle as they pursue piety or spirituality.  I think of Symeon the Stylite who lived on a platform at the top of a pillar in the desert.

On the other hand, one can become so consumed with earthly pleasures and pursuits that they lose sight of eternity completely.  Here I am reminded of the parable told by Jesus in Luke 12:16-21 in which a wealthy man focuses all his energy and attention upon his temporal life with no thought to his condition beyond life: “But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'” (Luke 12:20 NIV).  In a sobering conclusion Jesus tells us that “this is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:21 NIV)

God has given us this sense of something ‘beyond the sun’—something eternal—to remind us that life has a deeper, more significant meaning.  He has also given us pleasures in this life that we may enjoy our days and years.  There is nothing wrong with enjoying the things of the world, just as there is no shame in the pursuit of the spiritual, but there must be balance as we seek eternity while living life now.  We must look for God, the giver of all and the hope for our significance.

All Things ‘Beautiful’

[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. (Ecclesiastes 3:11a ESV)

The author of Ecclesiastes has been seeking meaning and purpose.  He has considered many things in and of themselves as the goal of the search, but this has come up empty; ‘vanity!’ he cries.  Then he comes to see that everything has a time and a season; a purpose in the larger picture.  He is beginning to turn his thoughts to something ‘beyond the sun’, namely the work of the Lord. 

Everything a person experiences, listed in 3:2-8, has been given by God to the human race as part of the ‘business’ of life; and all these things God has ordained as ‘beautiful’ to their appointed time.  I believe a better rendering would be ‘appropriate’ rather than ‘beautiful’.  War, death and destruction are never ‘beautiful’, but they are still under the sovereign hand of God and therefore they are fitted into their appropriate place.

This seems to be an important pathway to making sense of life, although the following portion of the verse tells us that we cannot know everything (I will deal with this in the next post).  Yet as we see and accept God’s guiding had in all matters of life, we may begin to develop an understanding of His love, compassion and care.  In times of joy or happiness (birth, planting, healing, peace, etc.) this may be easier, because we expect and affirm God’s goodness.  But in times of hardship or trouble (death, war, grief, loss, etc.) we might lose sight of the compassion of God.  Yet these times are made appropriate, even if we don’t find them beautiful, to the season of life. 

I have used the analogy of our lives as a brick wall.  Each event is a brick that we must fit into our story.  Perhaps, as we grow and discover, we will learn more how the difficult pieces fit appropriately, and someday be able to step back and see the beauty in all things.

Life in Order

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven… (Ecclesiastes 3:1 ESV)

At the end of chapter 2 the author began to shift his thinking away from the ‘horizontal’ and onto the ‘vertical’; looking for meaning beyond the “vanity” or seeming emptiness of the world. 

As chapter 3 opens, he becomes very poetic in a realization that all things have a time and a place; that perhaps there is some order to life, and that existence is not necessarily chaos.  The list that follows in verses 2-8 (made culturally famous by the Byrds in the 1965 hit Turn, Turn, Turn written by Pete Seeger) encompasses life from birth to death and all the activities encountered during a person’s span of years.  Planting and harvesting; productivity (creating, building up) and destruction (tearing down); love and hate; joy and sorrow; peace and war; friendship and enmity; words and silence—every human experience has a place and a time.  Order within ‘chaos’.

God has ordered our days.  Paul told the Athenians that the One True God had set the paths for all humanity; ordering their lives (Acts 17:26-28).  King David knew that all the days of a person had been pre-ordained by the Lord (Psalm 139:16).  Moses prayed that God would enable His people to take a right and wise accounting of their days (Psalm 90:12). 

Our lives may at times seem to be out of our control, but they are never out of God’s control.  We may not know what each day holds—but the Lord does.  As we go through the seasons of our lives we must look to the King of Heaven for the certainty that our times are in His hands and that He can be absolutely trusted with all our days (Psalm 62:8) 

First Steps of Faith

This post continues the exploration of the book of Ecclesiastes 

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 ESV)

            Ecclesiastes can seem to be a ‘cynical’ book, particularly early on, but it is not a book devoid of hope and faith.  In the above verses, the author reaches an early conclusion: because life and existence are “vanity” (again this word means ‘temporary ‘or ‘transient’ as a vapor) and there seems to be no great purpose, a person should seek the simple pleasures of the world—a good meal, a fine wine, a job which makes one feel complete and valued.  Don’t worry about trying to change the world; just be at peace with yourself.  The author sees God’s hand in this (only the second time thus far that God has been mentioned in the book). 

            The author has come to a critical realization: “apart from [God] who can eat or who can have enjoyment?”  For the first time in his discourse on vain things, the author sees ‘beyond the sun’ to something more; a vertical dimension to life.  These are the first steps of faith—the recognition of something more that what can be experienced “under the sun”. 

            Recognition of God, and our need to be connected to Him, is a vital step towards discovering our life’s meaning and purpose.  The writer of Hebrews puts it this way: “without faith it is impossible to please [God], for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6 ESV)  The author of Ecclesiastes believes that God exists and believes that He gives “wisdom and knowledge and joy” (2:26) to those who please Him.  He has not yet discovered meaning, but has taken a crucial first step. 

            Every person’s search for meaning must begin here as well.  If one only look ‘horizontally’, what the book of Ecclesiastes refers to as “under the sun” they will never find ultimate fulfillment or purpose.  Only as a person takes the first steps of faith and looks ‘vertically’, or as I say ‘beyond the sun’, will they begin to discover the meaning they long for.   

        

The Vanity of Living for Self

Then I regarded all the works my hands had done and in the labor at which I had labored to do and behold, all was vanity and a grasping of wind and there was no gain under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:11)

        The search for meaning continues.  In these opening verses (2:1-11), the author recalls how he sought answers by turning to a life devoted to himself.  He found laughter and mirth to be pointless in themselves and the stimulation of wine had no value.  He satisfied his sexual appetites, but these “delights of the sons of men” didn’t answer his true longing.  He sought a life of achievement.  He built buildings, parks and fountains; he acquired wealth and prestige; he took hold of whatever he saw and held nothing back.  He discovered some measure of satisfaction from all these achievements, but no meaning.  When he stepped back to evaluate all he had done, indulging his desires, he realized it was all empty.  Nothing he had done mattered at all.

        I'm reminded of certain passages which tell us that whatever we do we are to work at it with all our heart, as working for the Lord (see 1 Corinthians 10:31 & Colossians 3:23).  What we do in this life only matters insomuch as it is done for the honor of the Lord; for His lasting glory.  Anything else may bring some measure of satisfaction yet be sure that it will be only a temporary pleasure.  The writer of Ecclesiastes found emptiness because he did all these things for himself, to discover "what was good for the children of men to do under heaven during the few days of their life”.  He had not yet considered what to do that would matter beyond his few days; what would matter ‘beyond the sun’.  Living for self always leads to emptiness.

An Unhappy Business

¹²I, the Preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.  ¹³And I committed my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom regarding all that which is done under the heavens; the grievous business [which] God has given to the sons of man to be busied with.  ¹⁴I have seen all the works which are done under the sun, and behold, all was vanity and a grasping of wind.  ¹⁵[What is] bent is not able to be made straight, and [what is] lacking is not able to be counted. (Ecclesiastes 1:12-15)

The Preacher, the king of Israel (again, likely Solomon) has undertaken the task of exploring all that is done on earth.  He seems to have come away disappointed, for as he studies the world, and a person’s place and purpose in it, he reaches the conclusion that one’s lot is a grievous, or ‘unhappy’, business.  Life continues to give the impression of emptiness; as vain an effort as “grasping the wind”. 

The Preacher determines that God’s ways are outside of a person’s ability to grasp (something he will come back to in chapter 3) just as what is crooked or bent cannot be straightened or something invisible cannot be counted or accounted for.  Thus, to pursue meaning in life is a vain exercise leaving one in doubt or despair.

God does not show us the answers to all of life’s questions.  In this fallen world, there will always be mysteries; the unexplained and the unanswered.  It isn’t that God does not desire us to know, but rather that He desires us to come to Him in faith precisely because we do not know. 

The blessing for the Christian is that we have the completed canon of written Scripture, as well as the witness of the Holy Spirit, whereas the Preacher was more limited in the level of revelation God had given to that point.  However, just because we have this fuller revelation does not mean we have, or need, any less faith.  In fact, knowing more, we can perceive more deeply and more clearly the pain and tragedy of a fallen world—although we are no closer to answering the mysteries.  We continue to bear the ‘unhappy business’; the burden of not knowing.  And we continue to be frustrated at not being able to straighten the crooked or count the invisible.  We must trust God that all is, in the end, not vanity.        

Do People Matter?

There is no memorial of those from days past, nor shall there be of those to come; no there will be no memorial by those who come later.   (Ecclesiastes 1:11)

            

The world reveals an endless cycle of ‘vanity’—a repetitive cycle with leads the Preacher to pose the question of pointlessness (see 1:3).  Surely the very fact of human existence gives some sense of purpose or meaning to the world.  But does it?  The opening salvo of the book ends with the opposite conclusion: most people—the vast majority—live and die in complete obscurity.  No one truly remembers those from the past; no one in the future will remember these present days and they also will be forgotten in their turn.

            

We remember Napoleon, but what of the millions of soldiers and civilians whose lives were impacted and destroyed because of him?  Do we know their names?  Are they in the history books?  We remember Ghandi, but what of all those who marched with him; protested, resisted and suffered along with him for his cause?  Are they remembered?  Not to mention the countless years, in which none of these world shaking figures lived or were active, when people beyond number lived, toiled and died—without leaving any record or impact, except perhaps to those close with them who also passed off the scene.  We know so very little about the ages past, just as 

future generations will know so little about us.

One must conclude, from the Preacher’s perspective that humankind does not matter.  So take what you can get while you live; try to leave some kind of legacy or impact before you fall into total obscurity. 

            

As a Christian I know differently.  While the masses may not matter to the elite and the powerful, nor to the historian, every person who has ever been born matters to God.  Christ died for all, that all may live and find their value.  He calls a people to Himself and knows them intimately.  Each one matters to God, and that is what gives life its infinite value.