Ecclesiastes 1:1-18; 12:13

Note: due to technical difficulties, audio files for today’s sermon are not available. The manuscript for Shaun’s sermon is below with the caveat that the sermon preached is always a little different than the manuscript…

Introduction

When Eva was much younger we were on the porch playing with bubbles. I would blow them, she would try to grab them, and when she would try to put her hands on one it would burst. Every once in a while one would land on her hand but about the time she would touch it, it would still burst. Have you ever felt that way about life? Have you ever tried to understand the meaning of all of the things you see around you, but every time you think you get close it falls apart? It seems we can never get our hands around the meaning of life and every time we think we get close it pops in our hands. We are constantly frustrated. As one theologian has said, no matter how hard we look “life does not provide the key to itself.”

The writer of Ecclesiastes understood the quest for an answer to the problem of living. The wisest man ever put all of his wisdom and resources to the task of understanding life and threw up his hands saying “I can’t get it!” The word translated “vanity” in the ESV means something like “vapor” or “mist” or “breath”. Translators have tried to carry the meaning of this in unfortunate ways like “meaningless”. But the author is not saying life is pointless, he is saying that you and I can’t get all of life any more than we can hold a wisp of smoke or grasp a bubble. This is problematic for us because we want answers! We want to know the solution to the problem of life and living! So is there a way forward? I’d like to propose that there is a way forward so this morning I’d like to talk about 2 possible solutions, 2 duties, and a surprise.

I. 2 Possible Solutions

The book of Ecclesiastes presents us with two possible solutions to the problem of living. The first is one that we are painfully familiar with. It is what the author calls a “striving after the wind.” We see this in verses 14 and 17 of the chapter we have just read and it pops up throughout Ecclesiastes. This is the author’s assessment of human attempts to figure out how life works and why. It is something like watching someone try to chase down a receipt in a wind storm.

There are lots of examples of this attempt to answer the problem of living. It goes on all around us and some of us are approaching life this way right now. You can put the “wind chasing” solution into at least two big categories. The first wind-chasing solution is trying to answer the problem of living with experience. That is, trying to find some sort of meaning in life we try to find it in the next big “rush.” Pornography, risky relationships, or drug use never satisfy cravings for fulfillment. Neither does the rush of a huge sale, a powerful promotion, a new religious experience, a whopping academic performance, or losing oneself in online fantasy worlds. And though it may be hard to hear, neither do things as beautiful as getting to live in your perfect setting, finally getting married, or having the child you’ve longed for. In the end, these things can only point to something else. Experiences in themselves do not hold the key to the problem of living.

Another form of wind-chasing is avoidance. Some try to avoid the big questions by keeping things “fun” and light, never letting the plow of life drop any deeper than the easy surface. Some try to avoid the problem of living by crowding out any times of quiet contemplation. I thought about this as we were at the Mall of America this past week. We like to create flashy means to a quick and easy (though not cheap) diversion. Air-brush caricatures, slushies, giant legos. These are to the problem of living what pop-rocks are to nutrition. They’re exciting in the mouth but empty in the stomach. They may feel fun for a moment but they don’t end with joy. They are just striving after the wind and never actually deal with the questions.

But, there is a different solution to the problem of living. That is to submit to the one who made us. This might seem like a silly thing to say but this is something that we struggle to do because we don’t want to admit that God has the right to tell us how to deal with life. I understand there may be some here (or listening) that question the whole notion of a creator. If that is you, I would say, hang around and see if the things that are said here over time about God ring true with reality. I’d love to talk more with you about that but I think that if you can suspend your suspicions about Christianity you might be intrigued.

When I say that the second solution to the problem of living is to submit to God as the creator of life, I am talking specifically about the God of the Bible. I mean the One the Bible says lovingly made all things good, who then endured the discontented rebellion of mankind, but whose perfect love and justice could not leave that disaster unfixed. In his great love he provided the means by which people could return to him and to life as it was designed. That means is the gift of Jesus, so that whoever would believe on him would not continue in perishing but be restored to true life. The question for us is whether we will keep striving after the wind or submit to the one who lovingly made us.

II. 2 Duties (Eccl 12:13)

The next question then is, what does submitting to God entail? If we are to submit to God’s way of dealing with life, his answer to the problem of living is found in a refrain throughout Ecclesiastes and again in the conclusion of the book found in chapter 12 verses 13. There we find that the key to dealing with the problem of living is articulated in two duties. We are to fear God and keep his commandments.

What does that mean? To fear God means to approach God with awe and love. We honor his right to tell us how the world he made works. We trust that he made us and knows how to take care of us. Further, he loves us enough to want to actually follow through with what is best for us in spite of our striving after empty imitations. To fear God means to care enough to put in the effort to explore his love for us and grow in our love for him. To fear God means to actually pay attention because his power and love justifies it.

Fearing God is pretty fundamental to submitting to his way of dealing with life. But the second thing is also pretty basic. We are to keep his commands. You would think that this one is so obvious that we wouldn’t have to be told. But over and over again but we try to deal with the problems of living in every way except doing what he says. We are willing to go through all sorts of flaming hoops for the key to life but God says in Micah 6:8, “Listen, I’ve told you what is good. Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly before me.” We look to the best seller list to give us the new “secret” to life but Jesus says in John 6, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” We want the decoder ring for all of our decisions but the Lord says in Philippians 1:9-10, “have a bigger love for me and you’ll be able to discern what is right.”

God’s answer to the problem of living is really not rocket science. When the author of Ecclesiastes says the answer to the problem of living is to fear God and keep his commandments, it is a lot like Vince Lombardi telling his team every year, “Gentlemen, this is a football…” Friends, the Lord is God. You are his creatures. Fear him and keep his commandments.

III. A Surprise

Some of you feel like this is a non-answer to the question of meaning and in some respects that is true. The author does not give us an engineering diagram on how life works so that we can ascertain the ins and outs and thereby have a sense of control. God answers by saying “I am God…you are not…be the gloriously beloved creature.” What is amazing though is that if we would submit to our place as creatures made by a loving God who has revealed himself in Jesus – if we would in fact fear God keep his commandments – we would be surprised by the result.

I’ve been wrestling pretty hard in my heart lately. It has been fight for the joy that is mine in Christ. I recognize that a lot of the default impulses I have to answer the questions that rattle around in this noisy head of mine are a lot of wind-chasing. There are lots of ways a person can run. There are lots of answers that sound appealing until you pray them out loud and hear how much selfishness, and self-pity, and just plain silliness is involved even, if you can describe the silliness with spiritual sounding vocabulary.

If you read 3:9-13, 5:18-20, or 9:7-10 you would find the refrain I mentioned. Here the author seems to resign himself to work, relationships, and worship. You can read these verses as negative, but that is not the intent of the author. These verses are profoundly positive. The writer is saying, “Life is a vapor that you can’t close your hands on, but God has given you delights of work, commandments, relationships, food and drink. Go about living as God commands and enjoy the Lord’s good gifts.” Work. People. Food. Worship. These are the normal things of life. These are the basics we are called to give ourselves to. This is the context in which we are to fear God and keep his commandments. The big surprise though is that contentment and joy and even pleasure in life actually comes by faithfully living the life God has put before you as an obedient and thankful child of the creator. This is exactly what we are looking for. This is how we are to pursue the joyful contentment God has created us for.

Conclusion

I’ve told you before that during part of my time in seminary I worked as a janitor. There were times throughout the day I would find myself needing a scraper for some random bit of good or grime. Often the closest thing at hand for such a job was the YMCA card that was attached to my keychain. It kind of worked but it peeled, and folded in half, and eventually could not be read by the scanner at the YMCA. Because it wasn’t being utilized for its created purpose, it was being destroyed.

Some of you are chasing after the wind. You are longing for contentment and you are chasing it down like someone grasping at bubbles. You need to know that you will never be happy like that because that is not what God made you for. The more you chase after the wind, the more futile you will feel even if those futile feelings can be described with very intellectual sounding explanations. The Lord didn’t create us for discontent and joylessness so the quest for joy makes sense. It’s just that God made you for the kind of contentment that only comes by fearing him and keeping his commandments. There is a stunning simplicity to that.

What will you choose today, will you strive after the wind, or will you submit to God’s solution to the problem of living?