Links for today’s readings:
Mar 20 Read: Ecclesiastes 8 Listen: (2:41) Read: Psalms 60-61 Listen: (2:27)
Links for this weekend’s readings:
Mar 21 Read: Ecclesiastes 9 Listen: (3:13) Read: Psalms 62-63 Listen: (2:44)
Mar 22 Read: Ecclesiastes 10 Listen: (2:33) Read: Psalms 64-65 Listen: (2:39)
Scripture Focus: Ecclesiastes 8.9-14
9 All this I saw, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt. 10 Then too, I saw the wicked buried—those who used to come and go from the holy place and receive praise in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless.
11 When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people’s hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong. 12 Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him. 13 Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.
14 There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.
Reflection: Meaning out of Meaninglessness
By John Tillman
At my church, I help lead a doubter’s “book club.”
Our “book club” is designed for those without Christian beliefs or those with significant doubts about one or more orthodox teachings. Our agenda is often shaped by their questions and we often read books, listen to podcasts, or watch YouTube videos to aid our discussions.
Solomon, whom we assume is “the Teacher” of Ecclesiastes, often sounds like members of this group. Our “book club” attenders struggle with seeing some of the same things the Teacher calls “meaningless.”
The Teacher saw wicked people praised in the sanctuary after their deaths, as if they didn’t do awful things that everyone knew about. (Ecc 8.10) He saw a justice system too slow and cumbersome to deter wrongdoing. (Ecc 8.11) He saw career con-men and criminals live long, successful, and celebrated lives. (Ecc 8.12) He saw good people treated as the wicked deserve and wicked people treated as the righteous deserve. (Ecc 8.14)
One member recently echoed the Teacher’s frustration with slow justice when a convict on death row died of natural causes before he was executed. I balanced his frustration with one of mine: many spent decades on death row only to be proven innocent. For them, justice almost moved too fast. The joy of people exonerated before execution is erased by the horror that we have certainly executed innocent people. This echoes the Teacher’s frustration with the righteous being treated as the wicked deserve. This too is meaningless.
When the teacher calls things “meaningless,” he’s using a metaphor of insubstantial smoke or mist. A column of smoke looks like you could reach out and touch it, but there is nothing to hold onto.
This frustration points to an important truth—things ought not be this way. We ought to find justice reliable. We ought to see the righteous rewarded and the wicked fall. Words like “ought” express moral ideals and standards that should be firm and substantial, yet when we reach out for these things, we grasp at smoke.
Despite everything, the Teacher trusts justice will be done, even if he can’t grasp it today. We continue to work for today’s justice, even if it seems like grasping at smoke.
We do so remembering that ultimate justice and our salvation depend on Jesus, the righteous one, who was treated as we, the wicked ones, deserve. Jesus’ death and resurrection bring ultimate meaning out of meaninglessness.
Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. — 2 Corinthians 4.6
– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.
Read more: The Antivenom for Sin
Jesus is the only antivenom for sin and we are commanded to lift him up so that the world can be freed from the sting of sin and death.
Read more: Joy Despite It All
Watching an evil person be celebrated is, as the writer of Ecclesiastes says, meaningless…absurd…confusing.