01-12-08 Podcast script
[Pray first]
Wake up, do stuff, sleep… endless repetition, on and on. Share your life experience with God; think about the meaning of your life.
[Bible passage]
Ecclesiastes 1
When the son of David was king in Jerusalem, he was known to be very wise, and he said:
Nothing makes sense! Everything is nonsense.
I have seen it all – nothing makes sense!
What is there to showfor all of our hard work here on this earth?
People come, and people go, but still the world never changes.
The sun comes up, the sun goes down; it hurries right back to where it started from. The wind blows south, the wind blows north; round and round it blows over and over again.
All rivers empty into the sea, but it never spills over; one by one the rivers return to their source. All of life is far more boring than words could ever say.
Our eyes and our ears are never satisfiedwith what we see and hear.
Everything that happens has happened before; nothing is new, nothing under the sun.
Someone might say, "Here is something new!"
But it happened before, long before we were born.
No one who lived in the past is remembered anymore, and everyone yet to be born will be forgotten too.
I said these things when I lived in Jerusalem as king of Israel. With all my wisdom I tried to understand everything that happens here on earth. And God has made this so hard for us humans to do. I have seen it all, and everything is just as senseless as chasing the wind. If something is crooked, it can't be made straight; if something isn't there, it can't be counted.
I said to myself, "You are by far the wisest person who has ever lived in Jerusalem. You are eager to learn, and you have learned a lot." Then I decided to find out all I could about wisdom and foolishness. Soon I realized that this too was as senseless as chasing the wind.
The more you know, the more you hurt; the more you understand, the more you suffer.
[Main point]
Ecclesiastes is a disturbing read from the start, with its open admission that life can be pointless. Its author, the Teacher, examines our human frustrations, asking uncomfortably probing questions to help us consider whether anything can have real meaning apart from God.
Everyday work is a good place to start. It’s not very encouraging, however. It’s hard, frustrating labour which gets us nowhere, says the Teacher.
Despite our best efforts, we’re subject to the inevitabilities of day and night, life and death. We feel like small cogs in a very big wheel. The earth rolls on regardless and even our greatest achievements will be forgotten.
If life is pointless, it’s a truth we need to face. When we look for meaning and significance in the world and discover that nothing within our experience can fully explain the mystery of our existence, we shouldn’t be surprised. That’s the point.
This is a book for realists and for those who fear reality. Even its gloomiest chapters contain hints that faith in a living God is important.
Answers to our deepest questions can be found. And God is fine with us raising those questions. In conversation with him we can go beyond boring, and find meaning.
[Reflect]
What gives your life meaning? In particular, how do you respond to the routine things you have to do every day, like getting up, going to work, looking after the family, eating and cleaning? Do they feel like drudgery? How could they be full of the light of God’s presence?