Purpose amid futility: Lessons from Ecclesiastes

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Sukkot 2011 — day 2

Ecclesiastes is customarily read during Sukkot, the festival of Booths or Tabernacles, to pour a bucket of reality on the rejoicing of the promised time when God will dwell with mankind.

We look for an explanation for the misery and battle between good, bad and evil explored in the book of Ecclesiastes both from the beginning of history and the end. Revelation 21–22 assures us that God will wipe away all tears and there will be no death, mourning, pain or frustration. All those things will pass away. That is what we are all looking forward to when Yeshua will tabernacle with men forever.

Other texts: Rev. 21:1–4; Rom. 8:18–24, 28; Isa. 40:23–24;

There is a “but” because now we are not in that time. We see a society when wicked people overpower righteous people. We live in a society when wickedness seems more appealing than righteousness. 

We often bounce back and forth between hope and hopelessness. Sometimes the world looks only like futility and vanity (הֶבֶל hevel H1892). We wonder why we bother to live in a life with strife. Ecclesiastes has a message for us when we are in a point of our lives where life only seems pointless. 

Eccl. 1:13 tells us of Solomon’s search for wisdom. He calls it a “grievous task,” literally an “unhappy task.” He goes on to say in verse 15, “What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted.” Solomon speaks as one who has sought to understand wisdom all his life. Increasing knowledge results in increasing pain. It may seem odd that Solomon would speak this way, considering that Solomon wrote another book earlier in his life, called Proverbs, which esteems wisdom very highly. 

The apostle Paul draws on this in Roman 8 with hints and direct references. This is a key to seeing the picture of Ecclesiastes. Paul shows us that the sufferings of this present time has a time a period when it’s going to come to an end. In the midst of it, there’s a longing for a transformation, of our adoption as sons and the transformation of our bodies from mortal to immortal, from finite to eternal. 

It is better for us to consider the long-term results rather than the short-term snags and problems. 

When we consider our own impact in the world, we may not see the results of our impact on others for a long time. Some of the fruits of our labor may not be revealed until the end of time. 

One of the key tenets of Buddhism is the teaching “nonattachment.” On the surface, it seems to be a theme of the book of Ecclesiastes too. The difference is that Buddhism teaches that there’s no use in attaching ourselves to anything in the world, because we are no different from the world. However, God shows us in this world that He created the world and He created us above the rest of creation and He created us to have an impact upon it for His glory. 

The book of Ecclesiastes goes on to tell us the problems he experience when he decided he wanted to understand all the depths of good and evil. People such as Rasputin also fell into trap, assuming that the only way he could be complete and completely understand other people was to delve deeply into good deeds but also delving deeply into evil deeds. 

This is not the message God gives us. Wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. God’s light fills the darkness, not compromises with it or lives alongside it. 

Ecclesiastes says that the same fate comes to the wise man and the fool: death. Yeshua tells us to “take up our cross daily and follow Him.” We have to die to folly everyday and chose wisdom everyday. 

God did not create mankind as a collective but each of us are individuals and each of us have to be responsible to God to tap into Him everyday. We are called not to attach ourselves to the things of the world at the expense of our attachment to Him. Unrighteous attachment can lead us to sin, transgression and iniquity and further away from Him. The apostle John tells us that the things of the world are passing away, so we should not attach ourselves to the things of this world. We should instead hold onto the promise of God of a better world. 

We can’t fool God, we can try to pretend to give Him the best but He sees throughout it. 

Ecclesiastes 3 shows us that there’s specific times for everything that needs to be done. A wise person understands all these things. Since many of these decisions have long-term ramifications, even beyond our lifetimes, we have to exercise wisdom in all these decisions. 

Many people think they live a meaningless life: their jobs, relationships give them no joy or meaning. 

Yet, God Himself is the one who will judge the righteous and the unrighteous, not us. There will always be hypocrites in the midst of God’s people until all is resolved. Do we retreat away from the body of believers because some are just actors “playing good”? Yeshua says that the tares will grow with the wheat and Yeshua says that He will pull them up and sort them out. It is not our job to uproot them from the body. 

Seeing ourselves as fleeting and temporary is the first step of repentance and coming back to God. When we work so hard to be known by the world, it comes to futility because in a short period of time, even those people who are the most famous among us now will be barely a footnote in a few generations. Living apart from the Creator of the Universe is fooling yourself and chasing after the wind. 

There’s a lot of injustice in the world and the author of Ecclesiastes noticed that in his time. Injustice is not new. People have always strove to step on top of each other to gather material things, which will end up being fought over by relatives or the State after you die. You can’t take it with you. 

There’s strength in numbers. A strand of string gets stronger as more strings bind together to make a rope. More people coming together to accomplish a goal is more fulfilling than trying to achieve a goal on one’s own. The Messiah is the most important strand in the rope. When two strands are intertwined with Yeshua, that strand will not be broken. 

The latter chapters of Job have some similarities to the end of Ecclesiastes. When we assume that God  want us to be “just a quiet worm” we get a wrong picture of God. If God just wanted silence in the universe, He would have killed mankind off a long time ago. God does tell us that delaying punishment of the guilty cause some suffering to the innocent. God has delayed the ending of all things so that as many as possible will be saved. When God ends things, He will have to end it forcefully, which is what we seen Revelations. That’s part of the temporary imbalance to power that seems to favor the wicked over the meek. 

Ecclesiastes 5 calls us not to be hasty with our word to God. The actors, the hypocrites, want to be seen by their many words in public. We are called to open our hearts to God and then talk to Him. 

The book of Ecclesiastes tells us about the things that really last, those things that are important. 

It ends in chapter 12 with a simple summary: Fear God. 

No job is meaningless and without purpose. Even the simplest task, done in league with other people, can have meaning because those conversations you have while doing the most “meaningless tasks” can give memories that last a lifetime. You can drop seeds of righteousness in the hearts of those you speak and give your life and their lives meaning. 

Speaker: Jeff Quackenbush. Summary: Tammy Quackenbush.