Everything is Vapor
For Meditation
This week we begin a new fall series on the book of Ecclesiastes. If you’ve ever read this book before, you might feel a little uneasy about this! This book is very different than almost every other book in Scripture. It records no great works or miracles of God. It does not speak of grace or love or the hope of the gospel. There are no messianic prophecies or big pointers to Jesus. Instead, this book boldly speaks about the “vaporous,” meaningless quality of human existence, realistically portraying life as one of continual disappointment and futility. It sets up all the ways that we humans tend to find meaning: relationships, pleasure, wealth, wisdom, reputation- and knocks them all down like a house of cards. The book is relentless in showcasing the terrible foes that undercut our hopes: the march of time, the cruelty of death, and the seeming randomness of the universe. In the words of the teacher, the main voice of Ecclesiastes, “Everything is vapor, a chasing after the wind.”
So why study this book this fall? There are several great reasons for us to work through this book: First, it helps us address the biggest and hardest questions people have. So many people are asking the questions today that are being asked in this book- What is the meaning of life? Why is there so much suffering and injustice? Is there a good God really out there that actually cares? Is life worth living? It is not just non-Christians who ask these questions- many Christians ask these questions as well, but perhaps feel that it is not proper to ask them. But this book lets us boldly face the rawness of the human experience and ask our hardest questions, and it does not let us off with easy religious answers. This is an opportunity for us to invite friends and neighbors who may be asking these questions, and also to wrestle with our own honest questions as well.
Second, it helps us face the futility of our idols. This book is shockingly contemporary in that so many of the things that the teacher tries to find meaning in are the same things that middle class Americans seek meaning in today. Actually, it’s remarkable that many of the luxuries that this royal teacher experimented with that made his life exceptional are now basic expectations of middle-class life. It’s vital that we expose the gods of money, sex, pleasure and power, demonstrating that the things we think will ultimately satisfy will in the end leave us with dust in our mouths.
Finally, Ecclesiastes does help us find meaning and purpose in the midst of our restlessness. This book certainly does not offer us clear answers. Nevertheless, it does offer hope- that even with all our confusion and pain and restlessness, we can still live a deeply satisfying life by learning to trust the God who loves us and learn to live under his reign. In the big story of the Bible, Ecclesiastes points to the gospel of Jesus Christ, not through any explicit prophecy but by demonstrating how futile life is without the good news of the resurrection. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (15:14). So this book calls us to enjoy our lives as they actually are (not as we wish them to be), trusting in the goodness of God even when we cannot understand his ways, and ultimately hoping in the new creation to come that Christ has accomplished through his resurrection.
In preparation for worship this week, pray that God would use our time in this book as a way to draw people to himself and deepen our hope in the good news of the gospel.
Ecclesiastes 1:1–11
1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.