2.2

Time under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

The simultaneous faces of time, then, are its fleeting history and enduring cycles. Time continuously leaves behind and returns, is always changing and ever iterating. When its forward movement is judged to be progress, the past seems like fodder for the present that in turn enriches the future with more and better possibilities. Time as progress looks good. It’s return to the same is the means by which roots are deepened to establish what is of most importance, securing the good and our part in that good. A mother treasures her baby as a bundle of living hopes that time will selectively fulfill. Each life is oriented to progressively grow one’s abilities and opportunities, as biology and experiences come together and mature those potentials that have been there from the beginning. A richness and maturity grow with each returning to the same, an increasing fulfillment of potentials that are patiently waiting to be realized. When time looks good, losses to history serve to make way for future gains, and its cycles complete and perfect. As a means for good, time is the medium of life that grows and fulfills

But when time is seen not as giver but as taker, not to build up but to tear down, no real good can be found in it. Instead, it seems more like a dictator, taking what it takes and giving what it gives regardless of competing intentions or efforts. No will can override time’s will. Nothing can resist its destiny. No hand can seize time and change its course. No terms can be set outside of its ultimate decree. Time occupies all things, ready to enforce its right to consume everything in its path. In this dictator view, history brings all things to their end and nature’s cycles remind us there is no hope of escape. There is no hope of escaping time’s will

Ecclesiastes is a wisdom book of the Bible attributed to Solomon, a king of Israel. In this book, Solomon wrote his observations on the nature and meaning of life on earth to “explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven” (1:13). Solomon’s wisdom is believed to have been directly given by God (1Kings 3:12) and he is considered the wisest man in Israel’s history. His reputation of power and wisdom went far beyond his country. People came from many nations to see, hear and honor Solomon with their gifts and service and love (1 Kings 10:1-25). Solomon was reported to have had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines from different lands, all of whom he apparently had the inexhaustible ability to love (11:2, 3). He is in many ways the best example in the Bible of one who possessed the earth’s maximum good, the greatest good that can be gained on earth

Solomon begins Ecclesiastes by listing some of his accomplishments and the many ways he sought to satisfy his pleasures (2:3-10). He lacked no personal or material resource to please himself. He had many natural abilities and more than enough opportunities to exercise them. Solomon lived to the fullest extent of his will. All his desires were satisfied. He was free to follow and achieve whatever dreams he fashioned on earth. He had reached the maximum measure of a life whose every hope was achieved. Yet, when he looked through the lens of wisdom at his accomplishments and treasures, he was seized by the revelation of their inadequacy and inevitable end. In his wisdom, Solomon saw that all his good was at the mercy of time and there was nothing he could do to save himself or his possessions from its grasp

“Vanity of vanities,” Solomon concludes at the beginning of Ecclesiastes, “all is vanity” (1:2). His life and all it contained were doomed to suffer at the hands of time and there was no hope of escaping them. He saw how time condemns all things to forever repeat themselves. There is no true progress in life, only meaningless repetitions of the same. Time traps all things in their limited possibilities that have been exhausted long ago. “That which has been is that which will be,” Solomon lamented, “. . .and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun” (1:9). All that exists is doomed to forever repeat itself without any hope for something new and greater to prove the future’s meaning and purpose. However many novel details we discover that distinguish one person from another, or one sun set from the next one, they are all fashioned by the same mold. All are determined by time’s nature that shuts out hope for anything new

In the grip of this sisyphean existence, Solomon also saw the brevity of life. Every moment comes and goes. Every life is sudden and disappears. No security is possible in time. Everything will be lost. What is the purpose, then, of investing effort for accomplishments that will certainly end in nothing? We don’t know whether our achievements or lives will go first, but both will surely pass. The fulfillment of time is the end of all things. “All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust” (3:20). All our striving is a striving after wind (1:14). Even with all his privilege and wisdom, Solomon saw that his future is the same as that of all flesh. Whatever differences there are between the wise and unwise person disappear in their common death. Far greater than the uniqueness of Solomon’s wisdom is the same end for all lives. What, then, does it matter to live well and wisely? “. . .in the coming days all will be forgotten. And how the wise man and the fool alike die! So, I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous (evil) to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind” (2:16-7) Whether it is the despairing return of the

Whether it is the despairing return of the same or the end of life and its treasures, time sets the course of existence and determines its final meaning. From his position as one who owned the maximum good, Solomon concluded that however much is gained on earth, it is not enough. Having all the good this world can provide is painfully inadequate. Solomon’s circumstances are very unique. Few if any will live as well endowed and blessed as he. All people live with some or many hopes that are unfulfilled. I can hope to have millions of dollars and believe that would give me more happiness and satisfaction. I can hope if more people followed my advice, this world would be a better place and I’d feel better about myself and my contributions to it. I can nourish a hope that if I found my soul’s mate, my life would be complete. These and other hopes can nurture me my whole life because they all will never be fulfilled. They will remain hypothetical solutions to my life’s real discontents, indisputable answers to my problems because they will never be disproven. I will never have a chance to test the absolute truths of all my hopes so they can safely remain what they have always been: hopes for ever elusive dreams that motivate me today

Hopes undergird our life’s meaning under the sun. Whether or not we are aware of the continual hopes we harbor, they are indispensable for surviving time. Hope is the substance that fills and keeps us afloat in time, like air that buoys up a life preserver in water. Hope invests time with a measure of personal kindness and consideration that softens the naked reality of its severe terms. But Solomon saw time in its unvarnished form. He had the unique opportunity of testing just how much satisfaction there is when the pleasures of this world fulfill his hopes. What he discovered is that they don’t satisfy. They ultimately don’t do what they promise. In the end, they are vanity or hebel in Hebrew, which means vapor or breath. Solomon reached the world’s mountain top and he beheld its vast expanse of promises. What he found on the other side in their fulfillment was a cliff hanging over emptiness. Hopes that depend on their fulfillment in time are ultimately striving after a lot of wind. All the races we run, the battles we fight, the wisdom and wealth we acquire and the abilities we gain add up to nothing because, in the end, “time and chance overtake them all” (9:11)

Ecclesiastes reads primarily as a book about life in time on earth, its dead ends and despairing cycles. There are a few references to another time that Solomon related to God. This time can be called gracious. Solomon briefly described gracious time, its nature and how it is experienced. It is not determined by time’s way on earth. It’s foundation is distinct from the one under the sun. The simple grace of this time is in its entire dependence on God who gives it. Gracious time is from and to God, who decides its cycles and spans as He creates them. Gracious time has no power apart from God. It is God who sets its purpose and place. Time under the sun is impervious to our hearts and hopes, but gracious time blesses those who receive this moment for what it is: God’s gift (5:18-9). When we receive who we are and what we have as God’s gifts, the true and good nature of all things become apparent. Their meaning in relation to us under the sun changes. “There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God. For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?” (2:24-5). From God’s hand, Solomon saw a freedom from finite and futile time. He saw a time that cannot control or master us because it is in the service of a gracious God

The differences between these two times describe the distinct natures of our relationships with the world and with God. Time of earth ends in death and futility. Life’s meaning and good conclude in vanity when confined to the ways of earth. God built this futility into the world as a wisdom and a warning to not settle merely for life that is exhausted on earth. He wants us to be longing for more than earth can provide. God wants us to despair of this world by itself, without Him. With Him, we can discover each fleeting moment is “. . .appropriate (beautiful) in its time. He has also set eternity in (the) heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end” (3:11). God has set His eternity in our heart, not to know all His works from beginning to end but instead to attract us to the eternal One who intends each moment to be a beauty to us

God’s eternity in our heart, like time under the sun, is outside our ability to analyze or control. Our relation to it, however, is fundamentally different from the one under the sun. It is always present to each of us as a promise that can ultimately be kept and satisfy, a gift to have at any moment. We labor under time to accomplish and fulfill our hopes and to satisfy our desire with the perishing things of this world. God’s gracious time depends on what He does and fulfills (3:14). It is God’s Sabbath time, the grace of His rest in response to His complete works, so we can rest from our works