Our study of Ecclesiastes will not be exhaustive and will be in two parts concentrating on the two over-arching areas of the Teacher’s concern:  (1) Unfairness of Life (2) Inevitability of Death. The two areas of concern are not equal. Life itself, no matter how good, hard, or pleasant or pitiful it may appear must answer to the great equalizer in the end: death. For example, Howard Hughes’ relatively “good” life was eclipsed by his pitiful existence the last 20 years of his life in isolation.  In addition, there are those who work hard, who are morally superior to Howard Hughes, who pay their taxes, who go to church, who respect others, love their mothers, but seem to struggle through life: financially – never having everything they need. It is always heartbreaking to learn about families like the one I described who suffer for no apparent reason. I know of a family who buried their 1 year old daughter a few years ago. She died of a disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy. But shortly after this, they learned another child was on the way. The joy of having a third child became mixed with sorrow when they learned shortly after her birth she also has the disease that took her sister’s life and threatens her as well…things like this make life seem so unfair and leads us to conclude with the Teacher everything is meaningless or to put it in modern terms: Life stinks and then you die!

I.      HUMAN EXISTENCE IS MEANINGLESS

          The meaning of “Meaningless” or (KJV) “Vanity”.

          הֶבֶל   meaninglessness emptiness, futility, uselessness, breath, vapor, i.e., unit of air that passes in and out of the lungs through mouth and nostrils, with a focus on its briefness and lack of content.

·       Psalm 39:5 “You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath.”

·       Breath – same as “vanity” and “meaningless”.

·       Here today and gone tomorrow – short lived therefore insignificant.

·       Or as the Teacher puts it is like grasping at the wind. Like trying to catch bubbles.

·       Does the Teacher mean what he is saying? Is life really this pointless and absurd?

·       J.L. Grenshaw writes: “For [the Teacher] nothing proved that God looked upon his creation with favor, and the entire wisdom enterprise had become bankrupt. The astonishing thing is that such skepticism did not prevent [him] from asking the question of questions: does life have any meaning at all?”

·       That is the double jeopardy question – does life have any meaning at all?

·       Our confessional answer is yes. (WSC Q#1) This is our purpose.

·       Can we reconcile our text with our theological and biblical conviction?

·       Yes and no. We should avoid shoe-horning the message into our theological box.

·       We need to enter the tension wrestle with the text and allow the Spirit to challenge us.

          (13) The Teacher begins his search for meaning in life.

·       His initial observation: What a heavy burden God has laid upon men!

·       Man spends all of his days trying to untwist what cannot be straightened.

·       He puts blood, sweat and tears into a futile attempt at unscrambling scrambled eggs.

·       All of his toil and labor at the end of his days is meaningless!

·       This observation tells him this task is going to require a deeper inquiry.

·       He says to himself: (16) I am wise, I can figure this out!

·       If anyone can discover meaning in life, it’s me!

·       He devotes himself to study all of life leaving no stone unturned.

·       His conclusion: This too is chasing after the wind.

·       All of man’s endeavors, efforts and activities are unending and get him nowhere!

ILLUSTRATION: The myth of Sisyphus

A legendary king of Corinth who was forever condemned to roll a heavy rock up a mountain in Hades only to have the rock roll down to the bottom again just before reaching the summit. In Ecclesiastes, the rock is our “condition” or “circumstance” – a topsy turvey predicament where you spend your days on the treadmill of life living in a reality where virtue goes unrewarded and vice goes unpunished. Certainly there must be a better explanation for this! So he continues his research.

II.    WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE ARE MEANINGLESS

• After further investigation, he comes to another conclusion: (18) For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

·       If wisdom and knowledge cannot figure this out – what does that say about them? - they have no chief end – no purpose.

·       The very tools I thought would give me access to life’s meaning proved to be useless!

• Wisdom, understanding – all they did was magnify the futility of this life.
• Its like trying to see the back wall of the universe with a telescope – just more stars, more planets, more vastness – it just keeps going!
• Don’t misunderstand: He is not saying wisdom is a bad thing.
• (2:13) “Wisdom is better than folly” BUT (2:14) the same fate overtakes them both. ^15 Then I thought in my heart, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?”

·       Good question – maybe I am too inhibited by all that wisdom stuff. Being prudent isn’t all its cracked up to be! I think I will loosen up a bit, expand my horizons.

III.  PLEASURE, SUCCESS AND POSESSIONS ARE MEANINGLESS

·       (2:1a) I thought in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.”

·       I am going to cut loose and enjoy the pleasures of life and perhaps pleasure will do the trick.

·       He goes out to the bar and samples the mixed drinks and the imported beers.

·       But this did not give him any answers either – just a hangover and no memory of what happened the previous night!

·       He concludes: pleasure is not sufficient to provide meaning in life.

·       He is not saying life cannot be enjoyed, or that pleasure cannot be obtained.

·       At the end of the day they too fail to give purpose to this unfair existence.

·       He pushed the horizons even further and put his ingenuity to work.

·       (2:4) He “undertook great projects…built houses and planted vineyards…

·       (5-6) He made gardens, parks, reservoirs and planted orchards.

·       (7) Acquired a large workforce of slaves and animals. (8) Amassed piles of silver and gold. Had his own entertainment company. Harem full of beautiful women.

·       He had it all: wine, women, stuff, money, success. He was the Howard Hughes of his day.

·       (10) “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired…

·       (11) When I surveyed all my hands had done…nothing was gained.

APPLICATION: This is quite a challenge for us because we believe what we have and what we do gives us meaning and purpose. In the most recent Batman movie, there is a line that Batman says to his friend: It’s what I do that defines me. The Teacher would disagree. He would probably be forced to agree with Liam Neeson’s character Raz Al Ghul when he criticized Bruce Wayne in the movie for wanting to save Gotham. [Your parents thought they could save Gotham and were ] gunned down by one of the very people they were trying to help.

. The irony of situations like this is what leads the Teacher to draw the conclusions that he does – that life is unfair and empties our existence of any meaning. Some might say we can leave behind a legacy of all that we worked for. But form the Teacher’s perspective even a legacy is doomed to meaninglessness. (2:18) “I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. ^19 And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool?”

How should we respond? Is the infallible Word of God really telling us life is meaningless?

·       We must recognize the Teacher is speaking in a time of shadows.

·       His knowledge of God’s redemptive purposes and acts are incomplete so he speaks to us without full knowledge of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.

·       Another way to reconcile the message with our theology is to see it as exposure to wrong thinking/living in order to encourage right thinking/living.

·       A meaningless life is a life lived for oneself – a life that has no eternal perspective.

·       The Teacher wants us to recognize the greater purpose for our existence – our chief end – to glorify God and one way he does this is by shocking us to evoke a response.

·       Assuming this is the case: have you considered your life and the things you do and all the things you possess? Why do you do them? What purpose do they have? Do they bring you joy

·       Does having that possession, accomplishing a large task give you a greater sense of self- worth? If so then you may be holding on to an idol. (Idol buster)

·       We make idols of everything – as Calvin said our hearts are idol factories. “Every one of us is, even from his mother's womb, a master craftsman of idols”

·       We grasp at our careers, our wealth, our children, our spouses, sexuality all these are things we try to get life out of - for us it’s a new mini van  - (until the first payment comes due).

·       WSC #1 is correct. Only when our chief end is aimed at glorifying God, only when we work to build his kingdom and making his name great do our lives have a purpose.

·       Remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: “seek first God’s kingdom…”

·       When our lives are in full submission to Christ, “all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matt. 6:33)

CLOSER: Ian Provan writes: To all of those who try to “gain” from life, whatever it is they claim to be doing, [the Teacher] presents stark reality – reality that does not change simply because we wish it to, but remains fundamentally as it is in spite of all that comes under the heading “progress.” The more things change, the more they stay the same. The universe is not designed to enable gain to happen, and those who attempt to fly in the face of reality can only ever know grief and frustration in the end.

• What is this stark reality? That all of creation has been subjected to meaninglessness.
• Romans 8:20: For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it,
• Our efforts to “gain” or “get somewhere” in this life are evidence that this frustration predisposes us to self-definition and self-preservation which is self-centeredness.

• Provan goes on to say: This life…is intended to have at its center the God who created everything and who holds everything in his hand.”
• The underlying message of Ecclesiastes is you cannot have a life full of meaning and purpose apart from God – therefore we must be committed to God-centeredness.
• We were created for the glory of God, not for personal gain and pleasure – that path leads to meaninglessness.
• But the message goes further than God-centeredness – it points to a hole – a missing piece to the puzzle that he has not been able to find – so we must see Ecclesiastes as a wake up call.
• He examined and experienced life in the shadows of time before Jesus stepped into it.
• His conclusion that life stinks leaves us with the realization that there is a void we cannot fill.
• The meaninglessness we experience in life leads us to cry out for deliverance.
• Speaking in the shadows about the stark reality of our situation he points us to our need for the light of the world – our need for Christ to come and redeem from sin and the resulting futility.
• Paul continues his thought in Romans 8:21 saying: “creation was subjected to frustration…in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
• If the Teacher had known the whole story about Jesus coming to give his life – to die –and to rise again – I believe he would say – I looked for meaning and purpose everywhere and could not find it – here he is – the light of the world – the way the truth and the life.
• Are you frustrated with life? Do you feel like life has no purpose? You are stuck on the treadmill it seems and are looking for something to happen?
• Are you looking for meaning in high education, material possessions, success, pleasure – you are looking in all the wrong places!
• Look to Him who said: I have come that they might have life and have it to the full.
• The meaning and purpose of life under the sun can only be discovered and understood when we examine life through the lens of the crucified and risen savior!