Vanity Vanity
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Friday afternoon I got a call from a friend, he called to tell me about something that was happening to another dear friend of mine. I had talked to this friend about three weeks ago and her and her husband had been vacationing in California, visiting a place that he had been stationed years before. They had been traveling and enjoying life and then, at a harvest festival they had gone for a walk and she got extremely tired. The tiredness persisted and they made a doctors appointment. They found out she had stage 4 cancer and just two weeks later she is weak as a kitten and sleeps most of the time. The prognosis is not good.
I prayed with her daughter and with her husband. He told me that they had been married for 61 years. He had spent almost three times as much of his life married to her as he had not married to her. Of course he is devastated.
It reminded me that our time here on this earth is fleeting and short. It reminded me that only a miniscule part of our eternal lives takes place here and now. Of course we often forget that. This life seems so real and so immediate and so urgent that we usually don’t even think about how short and transitory it is. When we do we are usually sad or depressed about it.
I think that is what the writer of Ecclesiastes meant when he said all is vanity.
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher,
“Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”
What advantage does man have in all his work
Which he does under the sun?
A generation goes and a generation comes,
But the earth remains forever.
Also, the sun rises and the sun sets;
And hastening to its place it rises there again.
Blowing toward the south,
Then turning toward the north,
The wind continues swirling along;
And on its circular courses the wind returns.
All the rivers flow into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full.
To the place where the rivers flow,
There they flow again.
All things are wearisome;
Man is not able to tell it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor is the ear filled with hearing.
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.
There is no remembrance of earlier things;
And also of the later things which will occur,
There will be for them no remembrance
Among those who will come later still.
I, the Preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.
And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven. It is a grievous task which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.
I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind.
I think I have read this book without much understanding in the past. Maybe I was too young to really understand it. When you are young you are interested in building a life, in making your mark on the world, in doing things better and building them stronger. Your marriage won’t struggle like other peoples and your life will be better, your job will not be boring and your body will be strong and able. People will sit up and take notice of you one day.
I have now reached the age when I am less concerned with people taking notice and less concerned with making my mark. I find that I am more concerned with loving those around me than impressing those at work. I find that I am more concerned with being comfortable than being successful. I find that my goals have changed.
My boss recently retired and he was very worried about what would happen to our work group when he was gone. He asked me over and over to put in for his job, but I didn’t want it. It would get in the way of my ministry and get in the way of my time with those I love and that was much more important to me. I told him not to worry, the FRA existed before he got there and it would go on after he was gone. It would be OK.
I think that is what Solomon was saying in Ecclesiastes. He had been a rich and successful king, he had accumulated vast riches and become the wisest man in the world, and it was not enough. He learned what many movie stars and wealthy entrepreneurs have learned, it is never enough. It never quite satisfies. Something is always missing. He says it is all vanity. Not vanity like we normally think of, as primping and dressing up nice, this word is a little different. The word actually means breath or vapor. It is often translated that way in the old testament. He wasn’t talking about your sense of self worth but about how everything we do on this earth passes away. It is here today and gone tomorrow. whether we reach our ambitions or not they do not last. Whatever we build will be replace and whatever we do will be forgotten. If all you have is this world and the fame of this world that is a terrible thing to realize, but the author had another idea.
He begins the final chapter with these words
Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them”;
and finishes it with these
The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person.
For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.
Remember God even in your youth he urges so that when many years have come and gone you you will not regret the way you have lived. Everything comes full circle and all of this life ends quickly and passes into history, it is then that the next life begins. That is what it is all about. This life is unfair and temporary, the next life is perfect and eternal. This life passes away and all that we do here will pass away but the next life is everlasting. The only things from this life that last are the things that we take with us into eternity. Our salvation, or character, our rewards in heaven. That is what it is really all about.
It would be so easy to see the injustice of this world, the pain in this world, the death in this world and lose hope. It would be so easy to feel like nothing is worthwhile and nothing has meaning. If this was all there was that would be true. But Jesus has gone before us to to prepare a place for us where we will live in love and perfection for all eternity.
It is so easy to get wrapped up in the cares of this world and the things of this world as if this world is what is real and eternity is just a dream when the opposite is really true. This world and everything in it is like a dream, it is only a shadow of the glory that is to come. This world will seem hollow and empty when we look back from eternity. This world is full of evil and grief and it is easy to let all the things that go wrong here consume our mind and occupy our thoughts. It seems so real and so urgent. But like the author said it is really all just vanity, it is breath and vapor.
James puts it this way
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”
Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”
But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
We make our plans and we go about our lives as if we have control and as if we know what is coming and what will happen, but we don’t. We plan our lives without even knowing when they will end or what will happen to us tomorrow. If we had the right perspective we would remember that God is in control and only he knows what tomorrow brings. We can plan and we can prepare but we are grasping in the dark because we have no idea what is coming. if you are trying to control your life and trying to prepare for everything and be have a plan for whatever happens that is a terrifying thought.
My friend had no idea what was coming. Just a short time ago when we were all preparing for trunk or treat and watching the kids dress up and having a good time everything seemed normal and right. Now everything is upside down and everything has changed. Of course the rest of the world goes on as it always does. It doesn’t seem right and it doesn’t seem fair, because it isn’t.
Every good movie and every good book, in fact every good story of any kind has certain elements. There is a time of struggle. There is a problem to overcome and a time when all seems lost. In every good story there comes a time when everything seems to be going against our hero and there seems to be no way out. Of course we know that there will be a way out, we know that the hero will win, we know that good will triumph in the end, but the best of stories have that moment, when all seems lost and there seems to be no way out. In fact the best stories push us to that brink more than once. Time and again we hold our breath as the hero seems completely overwhelmed only to overcome the obstacles once again and leave us cheering for them. Often there is pain and often they suffer and struggle and it is that suffering and struggling that makes the story great and makes us cheer for the hero. Of course we know he will overcome in the end, we know the story will end well, we might have no idea how and we might see no way through but that is part of the fun, part of the excitement.
James puts it this way
Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains.
You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.
Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door.
As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.
Like a farmer waiting for the crops to sprout and grow we know that we cannot enjoy the fruit of our labor until the harvest, until the fullness of time has past. In between there is plowing and planting and weeding and watering that all has to be done before the harvest comes. In life there is suffering and pain and struggle and uncertainty that all comes along before the harvest is here. Like watching a movie or reading a book on part of us knows that it will all be brought together in the end, everything will be made right and the author will wrap it all up just the way we want him to if we just wait for the end of the story. Life is like that for the children of God. There is struggle and pain and suffering to endure, sometimes we cannot see a way out from where we are in the story, but the author knows. He has a plan to wrap it all up in the end, to make it all right, to bring about a happy ending. The author and perfecter of our faith is the same way. He has a plan and he will wrap it all up and make everything perfect beyond our wildest dreams at the end of the story, the end of history. In the meantime we must wait for the harvest, in the meantime we must endure, we must struggle, we must hope, we must remember that we cannot see the end. We don’t know how the story wraps up. We have to trust that the author will wrap up all the loose ends and right all the wrongs and bring about a beautiful ending. That’s his job, and Jesus knows just how to do it. Our job is to play our part. To struggle and hope and never give up. To trust God to finish our story well, to have faith. We may not understand it and we may not see any way for it to come together and make sense, but that’s OK. that’s not our part to play, that’s God’s part, and he has it all under control.
