At the beginning of my message series on Ecclesiastes, I said that the Book of Ecclesiastes was a hard book. Along with Proverbs, Job and Song of Solomon, we know that the Book of Ecclesiastes is one of the Wisdom Books in our Bibles, but God sure didn’t make it easy for us to extract wisdom out of Ecclesiastes. Much of the book is complex and enigmatic to me. It takes a lot of work for me just to understand the meaning in nearly every line, and then afterwards, to know what is the wisdom.
For the past seven Sundays, we went on this journey with Solomon and together we wrestled with him about what is it that truly gives meaning in life. We observed him as he made observations of people. We watched him as he watched people. In his search for meaning in life, he tested pleasure, work, money, and knowledge, among others. It took him along a long road, occasionally with bursts of promising hope, only to come up with nothing, again and again. I don’t know how many times Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun,” “Vanity of vanities,” or, “It is all chasing after the wind,” but it was a lot! But all was not lost. Ecclesiastes showed us here was this man who went through this process, and he came out on the other side a little wiser and a little fuller. When we read Ecclesiastes together this time, I like to think we also came out on the other side a little wiser and a little fuller. This happened, I believe, because we discovered that we were on the same journey as Solomon all along. Ecclesiastes strikes a chord in all of us because it is also our own journey.
This is the moment we have all been waiting for. We have arrived at the epilogue of the Book. When all is said and done, Solomon says the true meaning in life is to fear the God Almighty, and to keep his commandments. None of us will ever see all that God is doing. But in the end, we don’t have to. God sees it all and he can make sense of it all, so we can follow him, trust him, and rest in him.
I still think Ecclesiastes is a hard book. That will probably never change. But I am glad I accepted the challenge to study the book because it has been a good journey for me. My prayer is that no matter how many times you have read Ecclesiastes in the past, you have been truly blessed this time. I know I have. Thank you for being on this journey with me.
Please read the epilogue in Ecclesiastes 12:9–14 before Sunday. See you soon!
Your Friend,
Alvin