One thing is certain living in this world, sooner or later life gets hard. No matter how hard we may try to avoid the troubles of this world, sooner or later those troubles will find us. So how do we respond when adversity hits? How should we live when life gets hard? The Teacher has some wisdom to offer us that we won’t find in the world. First, live in denial about your mortality. Second, embrace correction. Third don’t take the easy way out. Even in the difficult times God is in control and you can trust him.
On Easter Sunday we celebrate that Christ didn’t stay dead. It isn’t just the meaningfulness of his death that changes everything for us, it’s the fact that because he lives we too will live! As 2 Corinthians 5:15 says since “he died for all . . . those who live should no longer live for themselves but for the one who died for them and was raised.” The fact we serve both a crucified AND resurrected saviour means we can be made new and we have a new purpose in this world, to live out the mission of reconciliation he has passed on to us as his ambassadors.
At the beginning of Chapter 5 the teacher gives instruction about how we ought to worship. The Teacher wants us to know that real worship, meaningful worship, doesn’t start with our mouths but with our ears. More than ritualistic praises, he longs for followers who give Him thoughtful attention and obedience.
In this section of Ecclesiastes, we find three ways of living: we can live lives of isolation, lives of surface level popularity and fame or lives where we engage in true, authentic community. As the teacher unpacks these three ways of living one things becomes clear, life is better together.
Human beings have a hard-wired desire for justice. Yet we live in a world filled with injustice. We live in a world where so often evil seems to go unpunished, where the powerful oppress the weak and there seems to be no consequence. How do we make sense of this? Is this simply the way of the world? As the teacher observe the unjust nature of the world he takes solace in the fact that there is a just and righteous God who will not allow the injustice that takes place under the sun to go unpunished.
Work is a gift from God. Human beings were made to find purpose and meaning through work. Work is a good thing, but work is not an ultimate thing and work can’t be the only thing. In the second half of Ecclesiastes chapter 2, Solomon extols the virtues of work and wisdom but also comes to the recognition that they are not enough. He acknowledges that in the end no matter how hard you work or how wise you are that death awaits you.
“Do what makes you happy.” That seems to be the anthem of our age. We seek out the experiences, the treasures, and the pleasures of this world hoping that they will satiate our desire for meaning and for a while they may, but it never lasts. Like a drug, they give us a temporary high but then we begin to come down and we start searching for our next fix. We think: “maybe the next time the next possession, accolade, pleasure or relationship will finally fulfill me in a way none of the others before them have.” According to Solomon, living this way and enjoying all this world has to offer, will never truly satisfy us because, in the words of C.S. Lewis: “we were made for another world.”
As human beings we have an innate need for meaning. We want our lives to matter, but do they? In the grand scheme of things, where generations come and generations go, where we’re told that we inhabit a universe that has existed for billions and billions of years and is made up of hundreds of billions of stars and planets, what value and meaning do our lives hold? In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon seeks an answer to the question that all of us ask at some point: “What is the meaning of life?” As we travel through this book together the answers will challenge and surprise us, but most importantly, they should lead us to examine whether we are investing our lives in things that truly matter.
If we are going to be the type of church that God wants us to be, if we are going to have the type of friendships, families, and marriages that God desires for us to have, it’s going to requires putting off and putting on in the areas of communication and conflict resolution. To love others well we need to be people who put off deception and put on truth. We need to be those who put off resentment and slander and instead put on the boldness to speak directly with others. People who use our words to build up rather than tear down and who replace bitterness and a judgemental spirit with forgiveness and empathy.
In John 14:15 Jesus says to His disciples: “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Loving God evidences itself through changed actions and attitudes. But how does this change take place? Paul gives us the answer in Ephesians 4:22-24 where he calls us to: “Take off our former way of life, the old self and to put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness.” If we are going to grow in our love for God this year it’s going to require that we identify those things we need to take off: actions and attitudes that no longer fit who we are in Christ. We then need to identify those things we need to put on: new priorities and patterns of behaviour that fit our new identity in Christ.