That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one might say, “See this, it is new”? Already it has existed for ages which were before us.
– Ecclesiastes 1:9-10
On our recent trek east we journeyed through some familiar mountains, including a close pass by the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. I don’t get around that area much any more, but I remember spending quite a few vacations there when I was a youngster. The mountains are beautiful, exhibiting a stately majesty. They are old mountains. Very old mountains. They have endured the scars of wildfires and everything else time can throw at them, and they are still standing. Generations of people have passed through their valleys and along their ridges, and the mountains will continue standing in place long after our generation becomes history.
The book of Ecclesiastes is an interesting work. It holds a few passages and phrases that are immediately familiar, but there are gems of insight dispersed all through the short work’s pages. Ecclesiastes is a work traditionally attributed to Solomon, known biblically for his wisdom. The theme of Ecclesiastes centers on a question with which people still wrestle today: Is there a way to make sense of life? Is there something that ties everything together, something that we can identify that has eternal meaning? The search for real meaning has been taken up by philosophers for centuries. Here in the pages of scripture we find a servant of the Lord who lets us in on his own pursuit to find an answer to the age-old question.
Before exploring anything in depth, the writer mentions something that we might sometimes forget, which is there is nothing new in the course of human life. We might tend to think otherwise. To be honest, I look at the world as it presently is and sometimes wonder how shocked people from only a couple of generations ago would be if they could see us now. Have you ever started a sentence with the words, “I never thought I would see the day…”? Maybe we could make a case of something being new if we focused very precisely on a modern manifestation of the human condition. Still, in the broad scheme of human existence things really haven’t changed. And like those mountains watching one generation pass to the next, God watches as humanity strives, looking every which way to find meaning and fulfillment in our existence.
Like the old country song said about love, we are looking for meaning “in all the wrong places.” The writer of Ecclesiastes sounds rather fatalistic with his opening observation that everything is as everything was, and everything will be as everything is. That doesn’t sound very hopeful. It probably was not meant to sound hopeful. Rather, it was meant to be honest. As human beings we’ve been at this thing called life long enough that we should have it all figured out by now. The evidence I see says we have a long way to go.
Make no mistake; there is lasting meaning to life. The writer will get to it eventually, but not before exploring all of those “wrong places.” Sometimes in the process of discovering what does work, it helps to identify what doesn’t work. This is what the writer explores in the pages ahead. Will you look with me?
See you along the Winding Path.
The Winding Path 