meaninglessness.

In chapters 1 and 2 of Ecclesiastes, the Teacher, who most believe is King Solomon, son of David, writes about three ways that he searched for satisfaction in his lifetime. The first manner in which he sought after atonement was wisdom. Found in Ecclesiastes 1:16, he says, “I achieved for myself wisdom. I became wiser than everyone who ruled before me.” Skip ahead a chapter to find another attempt at a life-filling activity. Searching for pleasure, in chapter 2:1-3, he says, “I began to seek the pleasures of this world. I laughed, drank wine, embraced folly and silliness.” Once again, in chapter 2:4,8,9, he says, “I undertook great projects. . . I amassed silver and gold for myself. . . I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me.” He also states in 2:10, frankly, “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure, my heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for my labor.” As you see, though he did all these things, his answer was a disappointing phrase at the end of chapter 2 that runs through the entirety of the book, “This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

The book of Ecclesiastes opens with one of the most depressing and agitating chapters in the entire Bible. “Meaningless! Meaningless! Says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” Although he tried it all, he came up empty.
The next part of the passage says, “What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? The Greek word for toil means, “To work, to labor, to torment or put to the test.” Also, the word for gain means, “produce fruit.” So in other words, the sentence is saying, “It is meaningless for a man to labor when he produces no fruit.” But that is not the end of the sentence. Notice carefully the words chosen to describe where this fruitless worker is laboring. Under the sun.
Begin chapter three. Consider carefully the words chosen to begin this new chapter, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” We see a slight, but very important change in his words in chapter 3, where he states clear as day that there is a certain time, with certain purpose for every activity that is under Heaven. Under Heaven, not under the sun. All the meaningless life that he searched for purpose in was without God. There is a stark contrast between what the teacher says in these different chapters. He searched for the meaning of life without God and found it as useful as “chasing after the wind” but yet in God’s world, under Heaven, there is specifically planned time for everything and all activity has meaning.

Pas, the Greek word for everything, means, “in every matter, in every way, on every side, in all things.” When God’s Word says everything, He means everything. All things are under God’s watchful eyes and in His hands. Ecclesiastes 3:2-8 list things that are under heaven that have a place and time. Birth and death, planting and uprooting, killing and healing, tearing down and building up, weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing, scattering stones and gathering them, embracing and refraining, searching and giving up, keeping and throwing away, tearing and mending, silence and speech, love and hate, war and peace. All these things have a time in God’s universe. NET.bible.org explains well the message the Teacher is trying to get across, “[verses 2-8 is] a figure using polar opposites to encompass everything in between, that is, totality.” In short, the Teacher wanted to make sure that we understand that God is in everything we do, see, hear, feel, and need.

Throughout the entire book of Ecclesiastes, the teacher talks about things completely out of his control, things like the rising and setting of the sun, the wind blowing, the streams flowing, also birth, death, planting, healing. All of these things are out of our human reach, we can’t control them. The difference in these passages is the simple phrasing, “under the sun” and “under heaven.” Life is meaningless without a divine leader, god, or creator.

Most religions, from the time of their founding, have a deity, someone above humans or something to fear. Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormon, Catholic, Islam. All of them have something or someone that they look to for answers, feel the need to worship, or wish to emulate. We humans were created to serve something bigger than us, something that we can’t control, and something that we don’t fully understand. God put these needs in our hearts from the very beginning of the world so that we would always need to seek Him, and He promises that when we seek Him, we will, eventually, find Him. “Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be open to you.”

We have two choices that the teacher in Ecclesiastes is showing us. We can either choose to be frustrated by a meaningless, accidental, purposeless life without Christ, or, we can choose to believe that God is in control of this life, and by trusting Him, we’re able to rest in His “plans to prosper us, not to harm us.” This doesn’t promise us a life free of weeping, mourning, giving up, tearing down, war, and hate, on the contrary, it basically promises that we will experience these things. In fact, there is actually a proposed time and place for all these things. What we are promised is that we can know that our purposeful, good, personal, and prospering God allows these things for a reason. What the Teacher is trying to get across is that if you suffer, if you fail, if you get frustrated and you’re living under the sun, you are accomplishing absolutely nothing. Live under Heaven, and in everything you do, all activity you live out, whether it be easy or difficult, amusing or heartbreaking, it has meaning. It has a place in a plan that we don’t even understand.

As you’ll see in 3:11, the teacher says, “. . .He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Time doesn’t matter to God, He is there all the time. We understand time in two ways, as chronos, meaning amount of time, and kairos, meaning season of time. The time that the Teacher is referring to in Ecclesiastes, is both. In the way we spend the seasons of our lives and amount of time given to us. Our meaning in life depends if we choose to spend this specifically appointed time, under the sun, or under the Son of God.

I found this quote from an online sermon on the subject, “. . . But we are called to go on in faith, enjoying what we've got while we've got it, and giving thanks to the God who gives us good things. But with eternity set into our hearts, we are also called to move forward in life listening for that eternal melody from God's far country, singing along as best we can as we hear snippets of God's life-affirming music. There is a time for everything but there is also an eternity for everyone. This is not an easy or obvious thing to sense. But we render God our thanks that we sense it at all. . .”