Word of Salvation – Vol. 22 No. 12 – December 1975

 

It Makes No Sense... Does It?

 

Sermon by Rev. A. I. de Graaf, B.D. on Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 (esp.  vss.2 & 10a)

(New Year's Sermon)

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 59:19-21, Romans 8:18-25

Psalter Hymnal: 121:1,2; 385; 163:1,2,3,4; 163:5,6,7; 198:1,3,4; 493

 

Brothers and sisters, Boys and girls, Young people, Congregation of our Lord Jesus!

"Vanity of vanities!”

Ah yes, and no doubt you have a picture in your mind of a girl spending hours before the mirror dolling herself up, or maybe a young fellow going in for a perm.....But the Hebrew word used here for vanity is ABEL.

Same word as the name of Cain's brother.  Names, you know, especially names in that early part of the Bible history, are often given AFTERWARDS, AFTER THE EVENT.

Abel means NOTHINGNESS.  NO USE.  NO - SENSE, NON-SENSE.  It's all Abel, says the Preacher of our text, and he means thereby: It's all so useless.

It makes no sense.

And when we just look around us, as look around us we do ― and look around us we MUST, because God put us here ― then ― must we not come to that same conclusion when we get a little older and a little wiser?

Abel, Cain's brother.... A fellow who came to nothing.  He died without children, and died for nothing.  A broken flower bud whose love for God just led him into death, so what profit did HE have?

Strange preacher, this preacher of this Bible book, isn't he?  We expect of most preachers that they tell us to cheer up.  And if there is little here on earth to cheer us up, we expect them to point us away to heaven, where things are brighter, where there is still beauty.  We hire our preachers to do that for us at funerals, and even in the church services!   Now and then I hear the criticism from weary church members:

"Leave all those politics and stuff a bit out of your sermons, man!
 We are in that kind of world news environment all week,
 why must we hear about it again on Sunday?!"

So we want the Preacher to come and open us a door of escape.  A door into another world!   A better world.  But the strange thing about this Bible book is that it refuses to run off into another world.  It talks about THIS PLACE, and calls us THERE to have our Sunday as well.

It shows us what this world is..... after we manipulated it.  What we made of it... this creation of God.  This Preacher of this Bible Book shows us what a fat lot of good our false gods, our gods of glamour and knowledge do us here.

It looks a pessimistic book, but it isn't, we will see that.  Even if only because God saw fit to put MORE books in the Bible.  But ― you know ― those other books do not make an escape hatch for us either... into some other world.  THEY TOO, TELL US ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS HERE and what did happen and what WILL happen!

Ecclesiastes is not an exception at all: it is an earthy book, and so are many, many more Bible books.  So is God who made this place, who made man, and, eventually BECAME A MAN to share our life.  Ecclesiastes, too, tells us the GOSPEL.  Even when it begins by saying by sighing: VANITY OF VANITIES.  ALL IS VANITY AND STRIVING AFTER WIND ― OH WHAT'S THE USE OF ALL A MAN TROUBLES HIMSELF WITH HERE UNDER THE SUN?

First of all this is the sigh of the man who does NOT know God.

It was that 3,000 years ago when this book was written.  And strange enough, it is that now, in this modern age.  That is one big thing in this modern age.  That is one big thing indeed that does not change.  Ecclesiastes 1 is a hunk of real life experience.  Ask any social worker.  Ask any reader of modern literature.  Ask any producer of pessimistic, modern art.  Ah well, for that matter.... ask anybody who just became a bit older.

An inexperienced youngster can look out into the wide, wide world with dreams and desires and ideals.  But a wise and experienced old person shakes the head with melancholy and a touch of pity and a touch of jealousy mixed through it perhaps.

Oh, still to be so young.
            still to expect so much...
                        you'll find out soon enough!

And mind you, the one who talks here, this preacher, isn't just a poor old have-not from an Indian village, an old inner-city drunkard or disillusioned underprivileged slum-dweller, either.  This is not one of the downtrodden of the earth who never HAD chance.

In chapter 2 we will hear how he had plenty of money, could command all the pleasures of life for himself, be they music, culture, travel, girls, good food or just good hard work.  Anything he wanted he could have.  But still there is this conclusion: "WHAT'S THE USE OF IT ALL?"  Something, then, must be wrong, basically wrong with this planet of ours.... with human life on it.

The optimists are wrong...
            So, then, must we say that the no's have it,
            that the PESSIMISTS are right?

One thing stands out immediately;
            This preacher does not believe in evolution.
That is he does not give a penny for the belief that we're moving steadily but surely to a new world, to a paradise on earth, even if it be a worker's paradise.

NOTHING NEW!  he says; what a tiring old business!  Things remain the same, rivers, winds, sun and stars, always same old world, and same old problems same old sicknesses and in the end... same old death.

We can put new clothes on – of brand new fibres and brand new fashions – but underneath is the same old trickster, who stumbles his weary way from the cradle to the grave!

What has now really changed?

Oh, you say, but haven't we now got airplanes and moon probes and laser beams and can't we even make artificial steak that sizzles in the pan like any that once sat on a cow?

Haven't we now got social security instead of slavery,
            and democracy in- stead of the deadly rule of old tyrants?

Well, my friend, maybe we have all that but underneath, what healing has it all brought?  The tyrants look differ but is tyranny dead?  The toys are different but have we more peace, more love; have we got ourselves out of the weary treadmill of greed and lust, wages and prices, haves and have-nots, injustice and well anything but real evolution?  Evolution means things are getting better all the time.  Maybe my DREAMS are getting better all the time as the song says... but even that remains to be seen.

The old questions remain bitter as ever.  Our kids bump up against them at school and we find them next to – if not ON – our breakfast table each morning. They still give people sleepless nights and days of tears. So what's REALLY new?  Asks The Preacher.

You can see this in the brand new buildings of Melbourne's LA TROBE University.  Expensive place!  These days the kids have it all laid on when they want to study!   And the place is for students.  Top-notch graduates from high school, not just a load of rough wharfies either.

But you should see the way they have seen fit to ruin the place after the barely 2 years it's been opened!   No small school children these, but students for doctors, economists, teachers themselves.  Hardly a window with a fitting left on it.  Hardly a wall without scratches, hardly a door without cracks in the glass.

What does that mean?

One thing: these students were NOT excited with their new university!   They already shrugged their shoulders: so what's new?  Vanity of vanities...... what's the use?

― ― ―

Ah you'll say, but this is what the world-ling says.  Surely God's child, the member of the people of the Lord, will know and speak ― yes, SING ― differently.  Will he?  But who's talking here?  A son of David!   A King among the people of God!   A believer in God, a member of God's church!   Do you see that?  Like in Psalm 73 where it is a believer who comes running to his God and says: God it doesn't make sense!

It doesn't add up!

What kind of world is this where those who hate you can get away with so much?

I can't figure it out, ARE YOU THERE OR NOT?

And now we get towards the heart of the matter, the heart of the message of this book:- How must even a child of God ―YES EXACTLY A CHILD OF GOD ― look at a world as the one in which we live?

You see, this believer, this Preacher of this strange Bible Book, does NOT say: I'm on my way to heaven I will not be moved.......!

That's the way a bunch of Christian Evangelical Union students can huddle away in a little prayer meeting feeling good and close to God while completely ignoring the terrible stuff going on in their classrooms most of the time ― where the God of heaven is bitterly ignored.  No, this man here, this Preacher, does NOT say: “As long as I have my quiet life, as long as I can go to church and have a good meal 3 times a day and may have my quiet corner in the world with wife and kids, I will be content........!"

SURE, SCRIPTURE SPEAKS OF GODLINESS WITH CONTENTMENT.

But don't forget the godliness bit.  And to this preacher here the world for all the luxuries and comforts it has given him is a place that doesn't add up, and he can't take it.  He chafes under it.  It hurts him!

IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!

O child of God, do you hear the GOSPEL in this very page of Scripture?  For it is he who knows God is in control and who KNOWS that God has spoken of other things, and who has heard faraway the ringing of the great bell of freedom, it is he who cries aloud when he still sees slavery all around.  “I DO NOT TAKE IT, IT IS NOT RIGHT, IT NEVER IS RIGHT!!"

We hear him protest, and we see him cry the tears of Jesus at Lazarus' grave.  It does not add up, Lord, it does not fit!   Never mind, that wife and children are healthy and never mind that there is still money in the bank.....!

LORD, Your Name be hallowed, Lord YOUR Kingdom come.  LORD, YOUR Will be done not only in heaven but here..... here in this place, this earth.

Vanity?  Vanity in YOUR Creation, Lord?  But that is TERRIBLE.  It isn't right.  IT NEVER WILL BE!

The whole of nature is sighing under bondage.  And because he has the Spirit, God's child sighs too.  But, you see and that makes the glorious difference with this whole book.

― HE SIGHS TO ONE WHO HAS EARS AND LISTENS.

That's where this Preacher is different from some modern philosopher who coldly concludes that all life is senseless.  He doesn't take it, this preacher.  And in that kind of atmosphere statements can become prayers.  So the statement of verse 10:

            Is there ― yes even here, even under the sun ― anything new?
            Yes anything of which we may say: This is new,
                        this is truly UNIQUE?

Because to that burning question, when our dreams of evolution lie in ruins ― just like our half-baked towers of Babel that could NOT reach heaven ― to that question the Word of our living God has thundered its glorious answer.

Is there anything new?  Anything unique here under the sun?  Listen to Isaiah 42:9

Behold says the Lord, the former things have come to pass, NOW I DECLARE NEW THINGS ― before they spring forth I proclaim them to you!

IS THERE ANYTHING NEW?  ANYTHING UNIQUE HERE UNDER THE SUN?  Listen to Isaiah 43:19 ―

Behold!   says the LORD,
  I will do something new!. . . . will you be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
  Rivers in the very desert!

IS THERE ANYTHING NEW?  ANYTHING UNIQUEHERE UNDER THE SUN?  Then God came and took on human form.

And the monotony of death was broken
  on the Morning of the Resurrection
THEN GOD THE LORD taught people to sing
  what it says in Lamentations 3:23:
GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS,
  THY MERCIES ARE NEW EVERY MORNING!

We look around is in our so-called self-made world, the world of our sin and our rebellion, and when we cannot come up with anything but the sigh: IS THERE ANYTHING NEW HERE UNDER THE SUN?

Then God comes in 2Cor.5:17 and says:
            Whoever is in Christ Jesus
            is a new creature!
            Behold, old things have passed away
            and new things have come!
            for they learn again to look ahead to that earth
            this book looks forward to, as well.

The place a child of God is longing for
and hoping for and therefore WORKING FOR,
the world of Revelation 21:
            NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH.
For He who sits on the throne says:
            LOOK I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW!

What Ecclesiastes does ― must do ― for the children of God,
  is grab these children of God by the scruff of the neck
    and shake them till their teeth chatter,
      that they cry to God for that new heart
        that new life.

The new life which isn't any more so lazily content with the easy chair in front of the TV but cries out for the earth where righteousness dwells.  It is a good start when we learn to call foolishness again what is foolishness, when we seek God's wisdom in the wide vision, instead of being locked up in the petty little manageable corners in which we make ourselves snug.

Yes, Abel's name was "Vanity".  What a senseless life!   He who loves God in a way must first AGREE with that ― and cry about that ― that we have made it a world in which the Cains can go ahead and murder.

Only then we will see with wonder that Abel appears again in Hebrews 11, and he is not dead but lives and his sacrifice to God sings a song to God still today ― for that song never stops, for Jesus' sake.

So I CAN sing a new song, then.

So I CAN find HERE a Hallelujah for God, then.

So it isn't all death, then!

And grace HAS appeared, not just in heaven, but here.

The colours are stark, the touch is rough.  But it is the Gospel.  Stark as a cross Rough as a stone rolled away.

Amen.