Tag: everything is meaningless

Death and the Kingdom : Realism vs. Nihilism

*THEME WEEK: Death & the Kingdom – Ecclesiastes 9
Old Testament: 1 Kings 11-12
Poetry: Psalm 121

One artist recently crooned the words “I’m not important and neither are you, so let’s do whatever we wanna do. Bask in our cosmic insignificance, soak up this blip we’re livin’ in, ‘cause nothing matters anyway. Isn’t that great?” He goes on to say “I don’t mean to be a downer. I don’t even think it’s sad.” The idea behind the song is that because nothing we do really matters, we can do whatever we want and know that in the end we haven’t really changed the course of the universe or the planet. It’s a prime example of Generation Z’s gleeful, enthusiastic nihilism. (“Nothing matters, let’s party!”)

Sometimes, we mistakenly read some of the words of the Teacher of Ecclesiastes in the same light. The Teacher’s point in Ecclesiastes is not that everything is meaningless. (Eccl. 1:2) Instead, we should translate the word meaningless differently. If you read Eccl. 1:2, you might read “meaningless”, “pointless”, “vanity”, or “futility”. The Hebrew word behind these translations is “havel/hevel”, which means smoke or vapor; something like the mist of the morning that disappears. It is not necessarily pointless, but transitory, fleeting, impermanent. The real point of Ecclesiastes is in chapter 1, verse 3 : “What does a person gain from all of his labors under the sun?” What lasts? What’s eternal? What is not “hevel”?

In chapter 9, the author makes the sobering and realistic comment that humans, the entire person is “hevel”. Both righteous and wicked, good and evil, all will experience the same life (9:2), a life of a bunch of crazy events, and then death (9:3). The author says it’s better to be alive than dead, and we should eat and drink (9:7), dress in white and take care of our bodies (9:8), and enjoy the people we love (9:9) in response to our view of death. Is the Teacher just as Nihilistic as our Gen. Z artist? Does nothing matter anyway, everything is meaningless, so let’s party as we wring some joy out of it?

NO! “The righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God.”(9:1) Go, eat, drink “for God has already approved what you do.” (9:7) The author of Ecclesiastes gives a spiritual but real view of this world. Spiritual, because God is at the center of the lives of the good, but real because death is the end of the ride here. The dead “know nothing”.(9:5) There is “no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol [that is, the realm of the dead] (9:10). The author is serious about life. It is important to live it well, but also to enjoy it, because whatever death is, it is NOT life. The author of Ecclesiastes doesn’t give us reincarnation, nor does he tell us that we will live in a new world, nor is there any mention of heaven or hell. Death is the end. 

Until it isn’t. Because if the point of Ecclesiastes is “what lasts?” The answer is found in chapter 12. Verses 13-14, “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” Fearing God, keeping God’s commandments, that is what lasts. And then humans are judged. That every deed is brought into judgement is one of the strongest implications of the future resurrection in the Old Testament. Our lives now, every choice we make, sets us on a path to joy or despair, life or death, seeing the face of God or God turning his face from us. For those who have placed God at the center of their lives, God will approve of what they do.

Humans are hevel, but humans are also the only things that will last. Humans are fleeting and temporary but some, those who follow Jesus the Messiah, the one sent from God, and keep his commandments, will one day be eternal, be those which last. 

“I’m not important and neither are you.” Yes, we are both hevel and made eternal by grace. 

“So let’s do whatever” God wants us to do. 

“Bask in” love of the Father and the Son. “Soak up” the grace and blessings of the world that we are living in. 

Because, we matter. Infinitely.

Isn’t that great?

-Jake Ballard

Reflection Questions:

  1. How does one’s view of death contribute to their philosophy of and actions in life?
  2. What is the Teacher of Ecclesiastes’ view of death? How is it similar and/or different from yours?
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Ecclesiastes gets a bad wrap. 

Ecclesiastes 1 3 NIV sgl
It shouldn’t but it does. Most people think it is a depressed Old Man Solomon sitting down at the end of his life saying “EVERYTHING IS MEANINGLESS.” Therefore, most of the book is about how everything is meaningless, life is not valuable, and it would be better to be dead.
But that’s a bad interpretation.
First, let’s look at 1:2. This is the key phrase of the book. Everything hinges on understanding this phrase correctly. And most of our translations do a poor job. That may seem arrogant, but let’s look at the word in Hebrew. The word, (transliterated) is “havel” or “habel”. Literally, it means “mist” or “vapor.” Very rarely is it used in this sense. Many more times it is used of idols, which are “mists” as opposed to God’s “concreteness.”  In its more poetic context, which the passage warrants, it means “temporary”, “fleeting”, “transitory”. The author is declaring “Passing! Fleeting! Un-lasting! Everything changes and nothing remains!” See how VASTLY different that sounds from the usual “eVeRyThInG iS mEaNiNgLeSs!” we normally read?
We need to understand that the central call of the book is about how nothing lasts because it makes the question in 1:3 make SO MUCH MORE SENSE! The author (Qohelet, the teacher, most likely meant to be Solomon, but not for sure) is not simply lamenting that work is hard and not much can be gained. Instead, the author is asking a very pointed question : “In everything I do, WHAT DO I HAVE THAT LASTS? What remains? What is not ‘havel’, not a temporary, fleeting, striving after the wind?”
Now THAT is a question we want an answer to!
This isn’t a depressed teacher moaning about how everything is terrible and nothing matters and that all the stuff we do is unimportant. He is asking (and implicitly promising to answer), “What will be the thing that will last when all the other futilities of life fade?”
He goes on in these first 6 chapters and tells us that it’s not wisdom (1:12-18)[though it is better than folly (2:12-17)], it’s not pleasure (2:1-3) or possessions (2:4-11), it’s not labor (2:18-23) [though labor is a good thing (2:24-26, 3:12-15)]. The justice and oppression of men is havel, those who seek after money will realize it is havel.
Look at what the author says in 3:14 “I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it.” The eternal, so far as we know now, the thing that is not havel, temporary, fleeting or futile, is the work of God.
We leave this section of Ecclesiastes without the answer. There are some depressing things the author says, but once we have the answer for “what does a man gain? what LASTS?” we can reevaluate those passages in light of the answer.
Jake Ballard
Tomorrow we will finish the book of Ecclesiastes to find yet another wise answer to the questions of life on our walk through God’s powerful word – 2020 Chronological Bible Reading Plan