by Kent Leslie ✉️
I titled this class “The Meaning of Life” because that’s what Ecclesiastes is about. I realize a lot of people think Ecclesiastes is really about the meaninglessness of life, mainly because of how the book starts.
1 The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
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In any case you can see why people think Ecclesiastes is about the meaninglessness of life. But what Qohelet’s actually going for here is to tell his readers, “You know all the things in this life that you think give life meaning? No they don’t. I know; I’ve tried it. They mean nothing. All of it, utterly meaningless. Futile. Vanity of vanities, havél havalím, the smokiest of smoke.” All a smokescreen to keep us from recognizing they have no real and lasting value.
But there is stuff with a real and lasting value out there, and—spoiler warning for a 24-century-old book—it’s God.
1 Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; 2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain; 3 in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly; 4 when the doors on the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low; 5 when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and the caper bud falls; because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets; 6 before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, 7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it. 8 Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher; all is vanity.
True, Qohelet sounds like a real downer, but notice what he’s doing in this passage. He’s trying to make it obvious that all the things he mentions—times and years; the sun, moon, and stars; the weather; the strong and people in general; the stuff we plant, make, and fear; the plants and animals, everything, passes away. And the Creator does not.
Also true, we Christians are aware God makes all things new; that there’s gonna be a new heaven and new earth, and God’s kingdom isn’t passing away. There are eternal things to put our hopes in! God-things. But the people of Qohelet’s day were making the usual human mistake of looking at the physical world around us, and hoping these things would be meaningful and everlasting. And they’re not.
In class I brought up the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, we all thought it’d last a mighty long time; the Soviets especially. Then the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union fell. Human plans, meant to last forever, which didn’t. Happens a lot throughout history!
I’ve outlived a number of my workplaces. And churches. And my college. A number of institutions which were meant to outlive me, but didn’t. And afer Jesus raises me from the dead, I’m gonna outlive the world. So will you. So putting our hopes in the things of the world? Futile. Meaningless. Vanity. Kinda ridiculous.
But that’s what the Israelis of Qohelet’s day were doing: Preoccupying themselves with the physical things of the world. And the vast majority of things we still occupy ourselves with, are material things. Not spiritual things. Yes, the people working on them will definitely claim they’re spiritual things, and claim because they’re spiritual we oughta work on them… and no they’re really not. They’re products of the human mind, will, and emotions. They’re what Christians popularly call soulish—and non-Christians call psychological—and contrary to popular belief, soulish stuff isn’t spiritual. It’s carnal. It’s fleshly. It’s material.
It’s like how certain people insist a political fight is really a spiritual battle. But no it’s not. Does the Almighty have to fight for power? When Jesus returns, can anything stand against him? It’s not even close.
So all these factions who claim they’re in a spiritual battle? They’re just people who covet power, and wanna sucker Christians into joining their fight. All of them claim they’re righteous, but if they really were, they wouldn’t covet power; they’d have surrendered it to Jesus long ago. It’s smoke. It’s vanity. It’s meaningless. And you know the devil would love for us to waste our time on meaningless stuff instead of the legitimate things of God.