Thursday, January
10, 2019
These are the words of the Teacher, King David’s son, who ruled in Jerusalem. “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content. History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new. We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now. Ecclesiastes 1:1-11(NLT)
No matter how many times I read
Solomon’s words I cannot shake off thinking he had to have spent time on a psychiatric
ward due to extreme depression. These
are words for a deep blue Monday. We are
10 days into a NEW year and the lectionary comes up with the text that
says it out-loud and very plain: THERE
IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN!
Ok…it’s confession time: Sometimes I just want to close the Bible and
go back to bed. But, just like life, we
don’t get to do that; we breathe in and out, we get up, we go on, we keep
searching for meaning while we wash the dishes and listen to the old dog
snoring over by the treadmill (the one I haven’t used in 3 months).
Part of the meaning for which we’re
mining during these 24 hours until the sun hurries back around, is an answer to
that question: why? Frankly, we get tired of the next sentence,
because, at the deep base of our souls we suspect that the only answer we’ll get
includes something about God knowing, and we don’t, and can’t. Yet, we keep on looking. We look into the bottom of a bottle, drug
vial, or the next party. Solomon did
just that, and concluded where he began, that all that searching is
meaningless!
We feel like Bill Murray’s character,
Phil Connors in the movie Groundhog Day[2]. Connors, a TV weatherman, arrives in Punxsutawney,
PA to cover the day’s events. Taking a
room at the local bed & breakfast, Phil awakens the next morning to the clock/radio
belting out Sonny and Cher’s I Got You, Babe. Everything moves along during the day, and
Connors spends another night at the B&B, awakening in the morning to Sonny
and Cher, and the day repeats itself…exactly!
Phil is stuck in a loop that goes on for days – groundhog ceremony,
breakfast, conversations, bed, sleep, and then Sonny & Cher…over and over again! No matter how much Phil Connors scrambles, he
can’t make anything new or different happen – the wheel turns, and it’s back
to Sonny & Cher.
Now, in case you’re already depressed
enough by what you’ve heard/read to go join Solomon on the shrink’s couch, hold
on just a second; there really is some redeeming purpose in all this treadmill
trudging. Dig into the New Testament
with me for just one game-changing word:
And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” Revelation 21:5(NLT)
“New” is translated with several
different meanings in Scripture. This kind
of “new” is new in kind, a transformed, changed world, re-formed by
the hand of God. In one sense it is still
the world, the earth, the universe God created ages ago. In another sense it is all new; it is new in
purpose, purity, reason, fellowship, relationship. Everything changes because God’s hand puts everything
in a new perspective.
My bride just finished seeing the
eye surgeon; both eyes had the cataracts removed, and I hear a new thing in our
home: the colors! Oh, the colors! Elizabeth is looking at the same rug we’ve had
in front of our couch for 18 years, but now it is defined, brighter, it has
been renewed in her mind.
Like that, but not so trivial and insignificant
as an old rug, is the kind of new sight with which we’ll see when God puts
meaning into all that is around us.
For You Today
I have heard from many older people,
especially in places like Hospice, that I should treasure each moment because it
goes quickly in this fleeting thing we call our life. Now I can add to it: treasure each moment, experience, relationship,
and thought, because not only is time fleeting, but everything and every person
is a part of the meaning you will take with you through eternity. And God will open your understanding to all
of it.
Go to VIDEO
[2] Condensed
information & image from Wikimedia Commons
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